As the Fringe 2010 gets underway and with acts all over the city getting ready for a weekend that is going to be a kicker we are lucky, once again, to bring you an exclusive interview with a performer the BBC called a ‘revelation’. Clare Lomas is going to make the fringe here own and we can’t wait to see her show!

How have things been going, you all done and dusted for the summer shows or are there still some creases to iron out?

Er, yeah I’m still ironing! Still writing some new material and tweaking. Lots of tweaking. And, much to everyone’s horror, i still have to sort my accommodation out… Any suggestions?!

What has made you want to do the Free Fringe?

Well I’ve been doing the London circuit (hence the bags under my eyes) and I wanted to do a one woman show and take my material to a new audience. And I thought what better way than letting myself free fall for fifty minutes in front of an Edinburgh audience?! That’s got to be fun….

Have there been any obstacles in producing this show?

No thankfully, I’m just pleased I got on board with the Free Fringe as I couldn’t have afforded to do it otherwise. Most venues charge a lot of money for you to put a show on, so PBH’s Free Fringe has been a godsend.

What was the best feedback you got from your audience or the press?

Someone came up to me after a comedy gig recently and said i was the “female Tim Minchin”. I liked that, I’m a huge fan of his!

What was the Best and Worst shows you’ve played?

Best – was a comedy gig I did recently where Stephen Merchant was in the audience, and laughing. Lots of fun.
Worst – was playing a gig in Epsom shopping precinct. Outside. In the rain. Less fun.

What can people expect?

Well, I take the issues of the day (knife crime, terrorism, etc) and rewrite pop songs about them – eg the Avenue Q song Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist becomes a song about women’s penchant for bad boys: Everyone Should Date A Terrorist; Alicia Keys’ song New York becomes a song about the expense of living in London: Primark; etc. And I’ll interweave these songs with lots of chat ‘n banter between me and the audience, about whatever we all feel like talking about I imagine…

Any new tricks up your sleeves?

Well it’s just me and a piano for 50 mins which is essentially a pretty big trick since I normally have an attractive pianist at my side. Oh I’m gonna miss beautiful Matt; he’s in Italy getting a tan…

Who has been an inspiration to you?

Tim Minchin (hence my fave feedback…) Huge fan, I love that he’s managed to bring the comedy song niche out into the mainstream. That, and the fact he refuses to wear shoes/socks for any gig so that he feels like he’s just hanging out in his living room.

What advice have you been given, and what advice would you give someone bringing a show to the Free Fringe?

Someone told me to wear a hat and someone told me to stay in Leith. Not sure how profitable either of those pearls of wisdom are going to be for the show itself but you never know…

I can’t wait now, I really can’t wait for the fringe this year and if this show is anything to go by we are in for one hell of a summer! These York based production company is no stranger to the fringe festival and are bound become a talking point of the PBH Free Fringe 2010. The guys took the time out of their very busy preparations for the Fringe festival to answer our questions! More information about their show can be found at the end of this email.

TROUPE MEMBERS ARE: John Askew, Daisy Bunyan, Sion Clarke, Miranda Crowhurst, Meg Henry, Ed Lewis-Smith, Tom Stokes & Heather Wilmo

How have things been going, you all done and dusted for the summer shows or are there still some creases to iron out?

We’ve done several preview shows already that’ve gone down well, but we’re still working on it and perfecting things. There are lots of different up-and-coming writers with whom we collaborate; they submit their sketches and then the directing team (Heather, Tom and Meg) pick out the ones they feel will work the best. This means that we get all kinds of different styles and types of humour which creates a good variety that you might not get with just a small group of writers.

However, with so much material to choose from it can take a while to decide on which sketches to use! This is what the directors are doing at the moment, and when they’ve got the line-up confirmed we’ll be holding rehearsals back in York at the end of this month, and then we’ll head up to Edinburgh for the Fringe.

What has made you want to do the PBH Free Fringe?

We wanted to take this show up to the Fringe but couldn’t afford to do so with a pay-to-play venue. A good friend of ours did the PBH Free Fringe last year and suggested getting in contact with him, so we did and the rest fell into place. PBH has been brilliant – he pours so much of himself into the organisation and he doesn’t get any money at all in return.

He’s the reason that the Free Fringe works and keeps growing year after year, I think this year is its biggest line-up of shows yet. The other performers are really helpful as well; since our show is very new and several of us haven’t done the Fringe before, our troupe’s had a lot to learn and there’s always someone more experienced who’s ready to answer a question or lend a hand. The whole ethos of the Free Fringe is that it’s a co-operative effort with artists supporting each other. It provides free entertainment for the public while still maintaining high standards in the quality of its shows, and it’s really nice to be a part of that.

Have there been any obstacles in producing this show?

Mainly finding the time for rehearsals I think! We’re all students and active in lots of societies so during term-time we were all pretty busy and it was sometimes hard to find times when everyone was free. The preview shows were still really fun and our audiences enjoyed them but it’ll be good to have some solid uninterrupted rehearsal time before we go to Edinburgh, just to tighten everything up.

What was the best feedback you got from your audience or the press?

We’ve had some really encouraging reviews in the Yorker for our preview shows (see the links below) – one of the reviewers wrote that Tom’s performance reduced her to “hysterical laughter”. We’re still a very new show so we’ve yet to properly make our mark, but the overall reaction we’ve gotten from our audiences has been very positive and we generally walk away from a performance with the feeling that people really enjoyed themselves. Which is what comedy’s all about, in the end.

The Yorker 1 The Yorker 2

What was the Best and Worst shows you’ve played?

The best show, hmm I don’t really know to be honest. I wouldn’t like to speak for the rest of the troupe, but for me the best experience as a producer came with our March preview show, “Sketchify”. I was sitting watching it with our techie Shaun and during one sketch I looked round at the audience and saw them laughing their heads off. When you see the same material day in day out sometimes you can forget why it’s funny in the first place, but that audience was seeing it for the first time and they truly enjoyed it. It just reminded me how good the actors and the sketches themselves really were.

The worst show … well I wouldn’t call them bad shows so to speak but there were one or two we did to quite small audiences. It wasn’t so much a reflection on us, we knew when we agreed to do those shows that there wouldn’t be loads of people there. It was a little harder to get the energy going but we did in the end and the audience still enjoyed themselves, and at the end of the day it was good experience so we can’t complain really.

What can people expect?

That’s hard to say! Past sketches have included: a pomegramate mistaken for an orange, fatally accurate fortune cookies, a family reunion gone horribly wrong, and a nautical birthday party for a tortoise (I always end up buying a lot of lettuce for that one). We’ve had sketches set in the future, sketches set in the past, and one or two set in both. There’s one sketch that requires a giant date costume (‘date’ as in the fruit) which, last time we performed it, ended up with a lot of golden syrup all over the venue floor (totally worth it though).

No doubt some of these will return for our Fringe show but the directors haven’t confirmed the line-up yet and I know there’ve been some new ones submitted recently, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Whatever happens, there’s going to be a real mixture of different styles and subjects, so there’ll be something for everyone. Expect silliness, energy, fun, and a lot of talent.

Any new tricks up your sleeves?

In the past we’ve had silly voice-over ads done by the cast to go between sketches as a scene-change device, which was fun, so maybe we’ll have something like that again. But it’s too soon to say … you’ll just have to come and see for yourself I guess.

Who has been an inspiration to you?

I couldn’t say for sure; there are eight in the troupe and everyone has their own favourites, but of course acts like Fry & Laurie and Mitchell & Webb are always a big influence on any sketch troupe. Director Meg is a massive fan of Smack the Pony as well; some of their stuff is quality. Oh, and the whole idea of having an emporium of sketches is vaguely Victorian-themed, so I guess you could say Charles Dickens too, though that might sound odd…

What advice have you been given, and what advice would you give someone bringing a show to the Free Fringe?

Remember it’s a co-operative organisation, so help the other acts out where you can. And in turn, don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it, as most of the other performers are more than willing to answer questions and lend a hand. Do your homework and be prepared, but most of all enjoy it, have fun, and make sure the audience has a good time!