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The namegame The memoirs of the rich and famous have spawned one of the least likely theatrical successes of recent years. Anna Millar catches up with the creator of Celebrity Autobiography
W hether it’s Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie waxing lyrical as Miley Cyrus or Eugene Pack ‘stroking his putter’ à la Tiger Woods, few things can raise a smile like celebrities getting ribbed. And award-winning show-cum-comedy book club, Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words, does just that. A knock out success since it began in LA’s theatrical backrooms in the 90s, the show has, with very good reason, been referred to as a ‘merry compendium of the witlessness and wisdom of the rich and famous’.
The premise is simple: a host of comics get together and read extracts from celebrity autobiographies – with very funny results. What F***-strewn wisdom does Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee’s Tommyland impart? What does Sly Stallone have in his freezer? Is Miley Cyrus left or right handed? Heck, she barely knows.
For the show’s originator, Emmy-award winning writer and actor Eugene Pack, the show’s humour is very straightforward. Inspired by a copy of Vanna White’s 1987 autobiography Vanna Speaks, Auto Celeb has grown in the last decade, enjoying a special on Bravo TV and sell-out shows in LA and New York. The books’ authors are a who’s who of the great, good and downright loopy – yes, Burt Reynolds, Madonna, Sylvester Stallone, Mr T and David Cassidy we mean you – and the list of stars turning out to read is no less impressive.
‘There’s no great surprise or humour in the words themselves,’ explains Pack, ‘but rather the fun you can have with them.’ A case in point is the double entendres of Tiger Wood’s latest tome, How I Play Golf, complete with numerous mentions of his stroke and, whisper it now, the odd birdie. Where the show goes, talent follows with instantly recognisable names like John Goodman, Brooke Shields, Matthew Broderick, Paul Rudd and the cast of
Saturday Night Live, all having a go.
Sopranos star Steve Schirripa was due to appear in Edinburgh alongside Pack, Dayle Reyfel and Urie but when he had to pull out, due to filming clashes, Cheers star George Wendt happily stepped in. Never Mind the Buzzcocks panelist Phill Jupitus completes the line-up. ‘We get to work with some great people who just want to get up there and have a good time,’ says Pack, who admits it’s a delight to work on a show that will never be short of new material. ‘After we did the special for Bravo I realised we had something and really wanted to travel with it. We have this wealth of material that never stops, because people will never stop writing about themselves and people never tire of hearing it.’
Brooke Shields, who has played both Ivana Trump and Loni Anderson, has spoken of the impulsiveness of the show: ‘There is not one moment of rehearsal,’ she has said. ‘You show up and they hand you a book with dog-eared pages.’ Pack is keen to maintain that spontaneity and regularly rotates the material and cast. ‘Sometimes the laughs come in the banal details – say a really famous celebrity talking about their diet, other times it’s in the comedy of a familiar face like Michael [Urie] reading the words of someone like Miley Cyrus. We have “favourites” it you like, but we also know that while some people will love the Jonas Brothers’ stuff others will love the Sly Stallone readings.’
Besides which, no offence is ever intended. ‘None of it is meant to be mean,’ he says. ‘It’s fun at the end of the day. We’re laughing with it and hopefully the audience are laughing along too.’
Celebrity Autobiography, Udderbelly’s Pasture, 0844 545 8252, 7–30 Aug, 7.25pm, £14.50–£16.50 (£13.50–£15). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £7.
‘NONE OF IT IS MEANT TO BE MEAN’
HOUSEHOLD NAMES Five performers swapping the screen for the stage at this year’s Fringe
DOON MACKICHAN CLIVE RUSSELL
SIMON CALLOW
ABI TITMUSS
RODNEY BEWES
The award-winning star of Smack the Pony, The Day Today and Brass Eye has crafted a powerful, funny show based on the three worst years of her life, cunningly entitled Primadoona. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 662 6552, 7–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 5.30pm, £11.50–£12.50 (£10–£11.50). Previews until 6 Aug, £5. 64 THE LIST 5–12 Aug 2010
His name might not trip off your tongue, but this busy Fife-raised actor is a well-kent face having starred in everything from Coronation Street to Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He stars in Fringe snooker drama Touching the Blue. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, 7-29 Aug (not 16), 3.30pm, £11–£12.50 (£10–£11.50). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £5. The much-loved thespian, writer and theatre director returns to the Fringe with new one-man show Shakespeare the Man From Stratford, which brings the Bard and his characters to vivid life before our very eyes. Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 7–29 Aug (not 9, 16, 23), 2.30pm, £20–£22 (£18–£20). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £10.
Best-known as a glamour model, and a mainstay of the reality TV circuit, the former nurse takes on her meatiest role to date as fitness instructor Hazel in the 25th anniversary production of John Godber’s Up N Under. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, 7–30 Aug (not 16), 5.25pm, £17.50–£19.50 (£15.50–£17.50). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £10. The former Likely Lad heads back to the Fringe with his successful adaptation of Jerome K Jerome’s much- loved humorous novel about a trio of friends and their dog messin’ about on the river, Three Men in a Boat. New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 7- 29 Aug (not 16, 23), 5pm, £11–£13 (£9–£11). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £6.