list.co.uk/festival
PLAYING AROUND
There’s a bumper crop of comedians writing plays at this year’s Fringe. Yasmin Sulaiman chats to some of them about honing their theatrical skills
‘I t must be irritating for actors and directors because comedians muscle in everywhere,’ Lucy Porter muses. ‘We’re like, “Yeah, we’ll have a go at that, why not?” I think we are naturally quite
reckless.’
It’s a good year for recklessness. Stand-up Porter debuts her i rst ever play, The Fair Intellectual Club, at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe – and she’s not the only comic turning a hand to theatrical writing. Kim Noble’s You’re Not Alone will be at the Traverse this month, along with Fringe First winner Mark Thomas’ Cuckooed. 2010 Comedy Award winner Russell Kane has written a monologue in which he gets to play a ‘nasty fucking bastard’, Impro Chum Suki Webster brings us her debut play, My Obsession, and Richard Herring’s back with his i rst play since the late 90s. ‘Back then,’ Herring explains, ‘I was a slightly young upstart doing my double act with Stewart Lee. I got frustrated because I thought those
plays were good. But comedy critics thought I’d got above myself for writing plays, and theatre critics thought, “Who’s this comedian writing plays?”’ Today’s Fringe climate is generally more accepting. Ever since the runaway success of 2003’s Guy Masterson-directed 12 Angry Men, comedians have popped up all over the theatre programme – Daniel Kitson went from Perrier winner to Fringe First darling, and Phil Nichol’s received critical acclaim for his performances with the Comedians Theatre Company. So what’s inspired this year’s crop of comics-turned-playwrights to turn to the theatre?
For Porter, it was the discovery of a good story. The Fair Intellectual Club is inspired by the true tale of three young women from Edinburgh who, at the dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment, set up their own society to teach themselves subjects that were usually only taught to men.
‘Obviously, they didn’t go on to be great i gures of the Enlightenment,’
➸
31 Jul–7 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 17