13/08/06
Only in Edinburgh -
Categories: Edinburgh is a place of contradictions. The stunning architecture; the unattractive louts; the shit weather; the fantastic scenery; the delight on people's faces when they love your show; and the sheer unadulterated despair you feel when someone doesn't 'get' it...
It seems that people need to be able to grasp hold of a 'theory' - to understand what your show is 'about' - in order to enjoy and appreciate it. Recently, everyone's Edinburgh show has either a 'theme' or a definitive 'style' - hardly anyone just puts on a show that's purely about what they find funny - without some 'gimmick' to tie it all together.
People do this in life, as well - we seem to need to be able to put things in little boxes in order to feel comfortable with them; to categorise everything. 'Complicated' - if used to describe a person, or a situation, is almost invariably not a compliment: "Oh, it's complicated" always means, "It's difficult and not very enjoyable".
Now, I'm not trying to say that my show is deep or complex; it's not particularly. But it is a bit of a jumble - of styles of comedy (some dark, some juvenile, some realistic, some surreal); and, as Steve Bennett rather cleverly spotted, the fact that it's set in a charity shop is no coincidence.
I love charity shops. I love the unordered, jumbled fragments of other people's lives.
And life is, unless it's really shit and boring - complicated. It doesn't all tie up and you can't always (although countless American high school films would have us believe otherwise) always segregate people into reconisable 'categories'. I've tried a little to go with this theory in my show (although don't get me wrong - I didn't 'theorise' about it whilst I was writing it - that would just be wanky) - that life is a bit of a mish-mash, that doesn't always go to the places you expect it to go...I play Belle and Sebastian alongside Grandmaster Flash and Basement Jaxx (and a rather good Razorlight cover of Outkast).
And I'm a bit like that, I suppose. I like a lot of different music, from Chuck Berry to Eels to N.W.A; I don't just enjoy one style of comedy; I have several different groups of friends; I don't like cliques, I don't have favourites - I like things to be complicated. Things are fucking brilliant when they're complicated. It's another reason I bloody love wordplay - I love how utterly ineffective and insufficient language can be - so much so that we often use the same or a very similar word to mean two completely different things; and I love complexity and contradictions in language - the reason Shakespeare is such a fucking genius is not because of his plots (he nicked the lot, after all) or even his characters; but because of the way he used language in a totally unprecedented and brilliant way.
My show is a character show; but it's sort of a play. It has 6 comedy songs, occasional stand-upy bits, and a little bit of improv. There are good jokes and bad jokes. I know this. I wanted to present a character whose life wasn't always funny but wasn't completely tragic - to explore what might happen if someone was left for 10 years with only their imagination, a guitar and a heap of junk. It's not complete and it's not perfect; but I tried my best and think it's rather lovely. A bit like life, I suppose.
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