Performers

PERFORMERS TAKING A SHOW TO THE EDINBURGH FRINGE

In art, originality is everything. “You go up with an idea, and you come back with a show”

Given this, it is difficult to believe that, every year, over three and a half thousand shows descend upon Edinburgh for three weeks for the city’s famous Fringe Festival.

For comedians Alexander Fox and Jacob Lovick (both 2006-2011), the Fringe is a fixture in the calendar. But what does it actually take to bring a show up to Edinburgh?

For both Alex and Jacob, comedy and performing dates back to their time at St Paul’s.

This largely revolved around a fledgling ImpSoc (or Improvisation Society). A far cry from today’s sellout ImpSoc shows at the School theatre, their ImpSoc mostly consisted of a small cluster of 4th formers trying to make each other laugh in the old Drama Studio.

“In a sense, improvisation is the meat and drink of Paulines,” Alex suggests. “Something about flying by the seat of your pants and hoping someone doesn’t catch you out, or saying something with such confidence that no one questions you.”

“I didn’t really enjoy sport at School, and didn’t really enjoy many of my lessons. I just found my niche in trying to make people laugh,” Jacob adds.

Did St Paul’s encourage them to be performers? Not particularly—very few, if any, of their year ended up at drama school—but it was certainly supportive at the time. There were plenty of opportunities to perform and direct.

The uncertainty of the Fringe seems to be the uniquely fantastic thing about it.

Every performance and every Fringe really matters.

Opportunities which ultimately transformed an interest in performance to something more than just making people laugh.

Jacob remembers performing in a School production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, playing down-onhis-luck salesman Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levene. It clicked—it was more than just something he enjoyed doing. “It felt worth doing because it actually meant something to me.”

Similarly, it was in a Pauline-devised production of Orpheus, directed by Andrew Broughton, which took Alex up to his first Fringe in the summer after his A Levels. This unexpectedly spawned one of his first comic inventions: an Alan Partridge-inspired advertising executive, who formed the basis of his first show.

Their experience of performing has unsurprisingly changed much since School. “When you’re fresh out of school, you get away with the novelty of youth,” Alex reveals. “This industry rewards novelty over experience more than any other industry.”

This of course comes back to originality. The constant pursuit of trying to write something new, or tread untrodden ground, is an important and inescapable pressure of performing. “You’re really thinking, ‘How am I going to do this differently?’" Jacob says.

Originality is just one part of standing out. For anyone who has weaved between the hordes of flyerers on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile will understand how difficult it is to stand out from the noise.

You cannot, they both agree, get away with just being another white middle class male comedian on a stage telling jokes. Both have stepped beyond the traditional ‘stand-up’—popularised by the Michael McIntyres and the Jimmy Carrs of the comedy circuit – in pursuit of trying something new. For Jacob, this year is his first solo show, about a twelve year old Spanish boy lost in Birmingham; for Alex, his past two shows have been ‘one man, multicharacter shows revolving around a drum kit’, while this year, his improvised James Bond show Shaken Not Stirred will, by definition, change every night.

“Any good art comes out of, ‘What can I say that is new?’” Jacob poses.

For both, every year has been a foray into the unknown. You have to be ready for things not to work, for jokes to fall flat. Or that, on the night, something just goes terribly wrong. Alex recalls a drunk spectator who was sick down his front and sat through the remainder of the show.

But at the same time, the uncertainty of the Fringe seems to be the uniquely fantastic thing about it. Nowhere else would you perform in front of a fresh crowd for twenty-five nights on the trot.

“You don’t get that anywhere else,” Jacob confirms.

Originality, and rogue spectators, are not the only challenge. More shows have meant more demand for venues and accommodation in Edinburgh, meaning prices have sky-rocketed. While going up with a university improv or revue group softens the financial blow, both are now out there on their own, funded themselves.

“We have to work full time to fund this,” Jacob says, “So you really have to think through the implications of taking the financial hit of a Fringe show.” This inevitably impacts their work. While standing out is important, as is originality, shows have to be financially viable. Money is always at the back of their minds.

But the Fringe is not about making money. It is an opportunity to try things out, in front of a fresh audience each night, no more accurately summed up than by Alex, “You go up with an idea, and you come back with a show.”

Both are well into Fringe production double figures: Alex, from writing for the Oxford Revue to his current show, Shaken Not Stirred; Jacob, from performing with the University of Birmingham improv troupe to his own double act LoveHard.

Each year and each new show comes with it that excitement of the unknown, that feeling that you can never quite be sure what the Fringe will throw up.

It is that feeling, they both agree, that this could be the year. Given that the obvious next step for both Jacob and Alex is doing this full time – every performance and every Fringe really matters.

Alex will be performing in Shaken Not Stirred: The Improvised James Bond Film. Jacob will be performing Don’t Worry It’ll Probably All Be Fine.

 Simon Lovick (2008-13)