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Retails of the UNEXPECTED The Umbrella Birds have previously set their comedy in real toilets and pretend gyms. Marissa Burgess hears how this innovative quartet are preparing to shop til they drop
rented their very own Portaloo. ‘We had people standing on toilets; one guy had to watch it in the mirror because he couldn’t see anything else. We had to squeeze people in as much as we could.’ Still, it was a big success and they returned last year to reprise the concept with Gym set in, yep you guessed it, a gym (not a real one this time though, just a Pleasance Courtyard sweatbox). This year it’s the turn of the changing room. ‘It feels to me like it has the same kind of quality of the toilet cubicles, with that mixture of privacy and completely public at the same time, which is really fun.’ It may not be set in an actual retail establishment but they are still bringing the Top Shop feel to you. ‘We have a set with four cubicles,’ she says. ‘We’re never off stage, so we just get changed all the time in these cubicles. You can always see our feet underneath the doors.’ Expect an ever-revolving scene of tears, trying- on tantrums and rib-tickles.
The Umbrella Birds, Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, 9–31 Aug, 6.20pm, £8.50–£9.50 (£7–£8). Previews 6–8 Aug, £5.
‘ONE GUY HAD TO WATCH IT IN THE MIRROR’
T he ladies’ shop changing room is an intimate space, playing witness to bubbling neurosis and provoking many an emotional breakdown. Wobbly bums poke out from behind curtains as women twist and turn in front of the mirror suffering body dysmorphia and cupcake regret as they squeeze sun-starved thighs into overly skinny jeans.
team wrote Over the last two years the Umbrella Birds, in particular writer and performer Emily Watson Howes, have tapped into these near confidential spaces for comedy. Watching the sketch troupe Cowards, Watson Howes loved the way the all- male so specifically about the insecurities of men. ‘I thought there’s so much beautiful comedy just waiting to be written about women in the same way,’ says the performer, who gathered together Kate Donmall, Susanna Hislop and Kerry Howard (now replaced by Fran Moulds) to put on their first show WC. ‘It came together because I had this idea to do a show in the loo. It was just full of women crying and gossiping; an emotional range.’
Refused permission to use the loos in the basement of the Pleasance Dome they instead 24 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 6–13 Aug 2009
MEASURED APPROACH David Pollock chats to Stephen Carlin, a Scottish comic praised by the higher echelons of UK’s stand-up fraternity. So, why on earth is he getting so worried about shatterproof rulers?
With a title like Stephen Carlin Blows the Lid off the Whole Filthy Business, the Airdrie- born comedian is promising a lot. So exactly which lids can expect to find themselves being blown off this August? ‘I’m trawling through life and my past experiences to try and find out what’s the biggest lie I’ve encountered,’ says Carlin. ‘That’s been fun and there have been plenty to choose from. We’re talking about anything from Magna Carta and the concept of freedom of speech to really mundane, everyday things like shatterproof rulers. I want to question why rulers were high on the list of items to be made shatterproof, because I wasn’t aware of a high incidence of ruler deaths before this happened. I also came across one woman on the telly who said she’d lived through the war, but then I did the maths and realised she must have been about three at the time. I question her commitment to the war effort, frankly.’
Carlin agrees it’s strange he didn’t start doing stand-up until he had moved from Scotland to London seven years ago (he’s now 33), but he doesn’t know if he would have started at all if it hadn’t been for the Big Smoke. ‘I think I really needed London to push me over the edge,’ he says. ‘When I came down I was just working in office jobs and temping for the civil service, and I couldn’t really handle the place without an outlet, which was stand-up. I wrote sketches when I was a teenager, but I’d never actually performed before.’ Of course, his location is also an
advantage in that he’s right at the heart of the UK comedy scene, and has already supported Stewart Lee and Stephen Merchant on national tours. Lee, in fact, rated him highly enough to place him in his The Ten Best Stand-Ups in the World Ever show at the Bloomsbury Theatre last year. Time to judge for yourself how serious a claim that is. ■ Stephen Carlin, The Stand III & IV, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 7.20pm, £7 (£6).