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Comedy mets High Art {COMEDY}
that. I think comedy can always have room for no laughter if it’s daring enough.’ One act that’s appeared with The Horne Section is New Art Club, Pete Shenton and Tom Roden’s hybrid, experimental comedy-dance duo. Their aim, Roden explains, is to be ‘unique but also extraordinarily mainstream, like Monty Python or Reeves and Mortimer’. Consequently, they’ve removed all mention of ‘dance’ from their publicity. ‘I think it would put off people like me,’ he acknowledges. ‘My brother would never come to see a dance show in a million years, even if someone said: “It’s really funny and similar to a comedy show.” We’re trying to entice lazy twats like him.’
Still, their laughter quotient benefits from the
politeness or because they’re impressed, people clap at the end of a song. And because of X- Factor, I’ll get it when I hit a big note. Why not though? If the comedy’s there, the musical skills have legitimately earned the extra.’ Like Horne and Roden, Stone enjoys attracting crowds that would otherwise shun live comedy. So too does stand-up and qualified art curator Hannah Gadsby. She’s conducted humorous general gallery tours in her native Australia, but for the Fringe she’s straddling a fine line of reverence
‘COMEDY CAN HAVE
ROOM FOR NO LAUGHTER IF IT’S DARING ENOUGH’
discipline and intuition of 14 years of dancing together. Quiet Act of Destruction, a ‘rampage like a whirlwind’ through a petty, inter- village squabble, evoking the wider horror of all human conflict, is a looser affair than last year’s compilation, allowing them to improvise and interact more with the audience. ‘That close, double-act connection comes from years of throwing each other through some tricky physical situations,’ Roden explains. ‘We see the show rhythmically and choreographically, and you need that over 60 minutes but also within the punchlines of individual jokes.’
According to Royal Academy of Music graduate Vikki Stone, whose résumé encompasses a non-sex role in a gay porn film, conducting the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s choir, performing backing vocals for Elton John, starring in Yakult ads and appearing in no fewer than four ABBA tribute bands, every gig, whether motivated by creative ambition or making rent, made her the comic she is today. Of her Festival debut, backed by The Flashbacks, the former child prodigy flutist maintains that ‘although my comedy is quite raucous and filthy, there’s a lot of musical skill behind it’. Despairing of ‘musos’ that appreciatively nod at her arrangements for glockenspiel and ukulele but don’t listen to the words, what truly riles her is condescension from stand-ups. ‘The phrase that really bugs me is “six-string applause machine” when other comics refer to guitar acts,’ she fumes. ‘You can’t do anything about it. Either out of
and mockery of representations of the Virgin Mary. Densely Mary. researched, Contrary is a ‘serious lecture that I tell in a more irreverent manner with jokes and a few personal stories thrown in. Because it’s slightly heavier subject matter
than normal, the laughs are easier to extract.’ Her lectures draw those who ‘want to see a different kind of comedy, people who are genuinely into art but intimidated by gallery spaces and those who like feeling superior to other people’. And she hopes to encourage more critical art appraisal. ‘It’s important they take whatever they want from art and if they think something’s rubbish, that’s a perfectly valid response. A gallery or a big comedy venue doesn’t automatically convey merit; art should elicit emotion and whether that’s good, bad or indifferent, people need to trust their initial instincts. But laugh at mine!’
Vikki Stone & The Flashbacks: Big Neon Letters, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, 6-28 Aug (not 15), 11pm, £9.50–£10.50 (£8.50–£9.50). Previews until 5 Aug, £6; New Art Club: Quiet Act of Destruction, Assembly George Square, 623 3030, 6–28 Aug (not 9, 16), 6.20pm, £12–£14 (£11–£13). Previews until 5 Aug, £6; Hannah Gadsby: Mary. Contrary, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, 17-26 Aug (not 20–23), 2pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10); The Horne Section, Assembly George Square, 623 3030, 5–27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), 11pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews until 4 Aug, £6.
CASH FLOW
After previous Fringe shows about the death penalty, bigotry and misogyny, conscience-fuelled Irish comic Keith Farnan offers Brian Donaldson some financial advice
While there are few people who are able to laugh at themselves quite like the Irish, recent times have been somewhat trying for Celtic self- mockery. The aftershock of the global financial crisis is still hurting the Emerald Isle, and Keith Farnan sees nothing but further bleak times ahead. ‘We’re beyond Thunderdome in
terms of money,’ he reckons. ‘It really has turned into Mad Max over here; before we know it, we’ll all be riding around in leather with the last bit of petrol on the island.’ The crisis has become so acute that world leaders have been queueing up to either offer moral support or bid a fond farewell. ‘In the same month that the Queen turned up, we also had the Dalai Lama and Barack Obama, and it kind of feels as though everyone was coming along to pay their last respects. When you look at the world map of conflict, the Dalai Lama could have gone to Libya or Syria but he goes, “No, no, Ireland really needs me.”’
All this stuff will be put through the
Farnan filter for Money, Money, Money as he builds on three Fringe shows that have shown him to be a quality comedian who can mix the silly with the deadly serious. ‘The line through the shows only struck me last year, which is inequity. Cruel and Unusual was about the poor being executed because they couldn’t get money together for a defence lawyer. No Black, No Jews . . . was about immigrants arriving in a country where they were seen as less-than; and in Sex Traffic, it was about how we pay lip service to equality for women in society. And this year again, it’s about money and the size of a cheque at the end of the month, which is the ultimate factor for so many people.’ ■ Keith Farnan: Money, Money, Money, Underbelly, 0844 545 8252, 6–28 Aug (not 16), 6.20pm, £9–£10.50 (£8–£9.50). Previews 4 & 5 Aug, £6.
4–11 Aug 2011 THE LIST 29
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