Category Archives: Bedfringe

‘Where The Lost Socks Go’ (Bedfringe, 24 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“We’re off on an adventure, a quest for identity, full of catchy songs and crazy characters.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Nae Bad)

“I want my girls to see really accomplished tap dancing, there’s no chance they’re seeing that at home, but if we took them to an exhibition of tap dancing it would be boring as…” “I know what you mean. You want them to see something organic and free-range.” I like the barstaff at Bedfringe. They get it. Really great theatre for children should showcase music, movement, composition, and maybe even have a moral message to scaffold and shape their spiritual and moral growth. What matters is the premise. The toughest audiences in the world need a hook that works from the outset.

‘Where The Lost Socks Go’ has a brilliant premise. It’s one instantly familiar to the wide-eyed little ones, their carers and parents. An African grandma at the schoolgates observed to me last week that socks tend to be rather dull sub-Sahara while every other garment is louder than a cajon percussion box, played upbeat in an auld skool public library. Conversely, British socks are deafeningly loud and proud while everything else in the average English ensemble is limited to the colours of the Ford Model-T pre-sales catalogue.

We enter to find an electric rainbow of socks bestrewed around the stage, hanging from a washing line, covering the feet of the two performers – Beth Markey and Josh Baldwin – only… hang on… wait a minute… Josh is missing a sock. He’s got a big audition coming up, it’s his chance to join the band. Except he’d have to conform to their unshakable ‘No Ukeleles’ rule, something that he’s not feeling too good about. 

Josh has one of his guitar socks on, but where’s the other? He might also have to wear mismatched socks, that can’t be a good thing, right? We’re off on an adventure, a quest for identity, full of catchy songs and crazy characters. There’s a rocket ride, dance numbers, and several sockdraws worth of laughs. Once upon a time I was on the parents’ jury that summarily convicted and burned at the stake a disgusting heretic who had openly described Justin Fletcher’s Mr Tumble as a drama school project gone too far – they tried to recant as they were dragged through the street on a hurdle, but the baying mob of cosplaying Aunt Pollys and Lord Tumbles were having none of it.

As I said in the jury room after we voted for conviction, I like drama and music school alumni taking centre stage in the world of pure imagination. There’s a very great deal of finely honed craft needed to capture and keep the attention of the screentime generation. Under The Bed Theatre’s Beth Markey and Josh Baldwin have these skills and then some. They also have the talent to deploy their box of tricks to best advantage. My 7yr and 4yr auld loved every minute. Sock-stealing aliens! What’s not to love?

 

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘The Three Musketeers’ (Bedfringe, 23 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“If anyone was going to attempt The Three Musketeers as a two-hander, it would be the daring Morgan and West. Instead, much to their cardiologists’ relief, they’ve added the masterful Peter Clifford to their crew.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Nae Bad)

Charles de Batz de Castelmore (c.1611-1673)  was born at the Château de Castelmore near Lupiac in south-western France the son of a recently ennobled merchant and his wife, Françoise de Montesquiou d’Artagnan. He went to Paris in the 1630s, travelling under his mother’s name, and joined the Musketeers. The rest, as they say, is history. The biography of d’Artagnan – Louis XIV’s captain of le Mousquetaires de la maison militaire du roi de France – has been (somewhat) embellished down the years, first by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras and then, most famously and fabulously, by Alexandre Dumas. Now d’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers are getting the Morgan and West treatment. We expect clever silliness. We expect sparkling banter. We expect some things to be perfect and other things to go hopelessly, hilariously wrong. We are not disappointed.

One of my final memories of EdFringe ‘19 – back when the world was young and undercooked bat with a side of pangolin sashimi was still on the menu – is of encountering Messrs Morgan and West in George Square. They were having a spectacular run with their riotously brilliant ‘Unbelievable Science’, a show so critically acclaimed I awarded it this publication’s ONLY 7-star review. Onstage they were performing at the speed of light. Offstage, and rushing between gigs, they were, to put it mildly, utterly cream-crackered – a pair of properly wobbly-legged long-distance runners gasping towards the finish line. Seeing them manfully struggle in that oh-so-rare Edinburgh sunshine, it was clear as day that these two are probably the hardest-working all-rounders in the league.

If anyone was going to attempt The Three Musketeers as a two-hander, it would be the daring Morgan and West. Instead, much to their cardiologists’ relief, they’ve added the masterful Peter Clifford to their crew. Clifford identifies as an achhhhhtooooooor, with one of those deep and meaningful voices reserved for Penny Mordant’s campaign videos (that reference will age well). He certainly adds gravity, but no dead weight, to the ensemble. His comic timing, physicality, and sheer bloody hard work add an exciting new depth and diversity to the much-loved Morgan and West experience.

Alexandre Dumas was first and foremost a storyteller, the first to buckle his swash for a mass and enduring readership. So, have Morgan and West managed to distil the Frenchman’s Eau de awesomeness in a form that will pass muster for an audience of eager young culture vultures in the 2020s? Daughter 1.0 (7yrs) wrote the following in a letter telling her Grandmother about the show,

“Dear Granny, I went to the Bedfod festival fringe! Let me tell you about the tree muscatias. There was a farm boy who had a cow as a friend. And he wanted to become a Muscatia. There was bunting to show the danger zone. They took fighting very seriosly. They used flags to show where they were. For egsample, they turned one to show it was the port and another to show the cathedral where the cardinal lived, or the city. The story took place in France. There was a evil person who wanted some diamonds so he coald be very power-ful. The queen realy needed them. They triked him and gave him dimons made of ice. The farm boy had a fight with Mr Cheese wich made me laugh and laugh! it was not the country it was a city called paris. I loved it so much! lots of love xxx”

For me, the show could have been 10-20 minutes shorter and a wee bit pacier. Still, it’s safe to bet that Morgan and West (and Clifford too) have got yet another sensational hit on their hands. This is a production that will delight little kids new to the story as well as those of us who have known since the ‘80s that Dogtanian and the Muskehounds are always ready. Un pour tous, tous pour un!

 

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Just So Stories’ (Bedfringe, 24 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“Written on the hearts of each generation are sentiments and thoughts first put there by Rudyard Kipling. This show honours and amplifies that legacy.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1935) is how surprising he is. The quantity of his written output is surprising. The quality of his work, the texture of the language, is surprising. His grandeur and simplicity are surprising. His life story and the times in which he lived are full, chockablock, with surprises. There are even people – simple, honest, but let’s face it, a bit thick – who are surprised that a gentleman writing more than a century ago, in times divergent from our own, had different attitudes, prides, and prejudices from our ours. For me, the most surprising thing about Kipling, it gets me every time, is the enduring and universal appeal of his stories for children. No matter the age, they speak to a certain age with a kindliness and clarity that never fades.

We enter to find the stage populated with performers from across the English-speaking world. This is the first time they have ever met in di persona personalmente. This is a team of star strikers and heavy hitters. Faces familiar to fringegoers for many years. Here is a collaboration between Bedford’s own Blackout Theatre Company and the highly-respected Central Standard Theatre in Kansas City whose motto – “World class… expect nothing less” – says it all. Despite the miles and the enforced separation of recent years, will they do justice to Kipling’s majesty as well as their own considerable reputations?

We set out with ‘The Butterfly That Stamped’, journey alongside ‘The Cat Who Walked by Himself’, and arrive at the ultimate just-so destination, ‘The Elephant’s Child’. The performance takes the form of a rehearsed reading with carefully-studied, wonderfully-evocative percussive accompaniment. John Story – MFA Sound Design University of Missouri-Kansas City – who adapted the stories for the stage, is a renowned Sound Designer who has worked on productions ranging from high opera to low comedy.

He starts proceedings by quartering the audience giving each a sound to make – the desert winds, the noise of camels, the mumbling of their drivers, the chatter of the womenfolk. The hothouse Bedfringe studio transforms into an exotic caravan en route to the court of Suleiman-bin-Daoud where the first of our tales is set. I’d have liked to have had one of these conjurings setting up the other two stories as well. It’s the kind of magic that would have had John Story burned at the stake for wizardry in more enlightened times.

The little ones sprawled out on cushions at the front are enwrapped and enchanted throughout. Here’s what Daughter 1.0 (7yrs) had to say about the show in her letter to her grandfather:

“Dear Grandad, I went to the Bedford Festival Fringe! and we saw the ‘Just So Stories’. Did you ever read some to Mummy and Aunty Sarah? It was very exciting. Three narrators read and the rest made sounds and read a bit too. My favourite story was ‘The Elephant’s Child’. It was funny because the lady who had the elephants voice had a elephant neclase. There was three storys. ‘The Butterful Who Stamped’, ‘The Cat Who Walked by Herself’, and ‘The Elefants Child’. There was lots of drums and a gong and lots of difrant instaments like an empty coconut for horses and a ballown for when the corodoile puled the elephants child’s nose really hard. I really enjoyed it. Lots of love xxx”

For me, a Kipling-inspired show has to be surprising. I wasn’t simply surprised, I was amazed. The stories were told in a way that suggested they might have been written yesterday. They were told fresher than the first week at university. They were told as evocative as the sound of leather on willow. They were told as expertly as you’d want the surgeon who carries out a loved one’s open heart surgery to be. Written on the hearts of each generation are sentiments and thoughts first put there by Rudyard Kipling. This show honours and amplifies that legacy.

 

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Alfie Moore’s, It’s a Fair Cop’ (Bedfringe, 23 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“Alfie Moore has something to talk about, a rich vein of thought-provoking tragi-comic material that is worth hearing.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

The Radio 4 crowd are in en mass tonight. There are few cultural institutions which have done more to incubate and nursemaid emerging British talent than the airwave venue to be found at 92-95 FM and 198 LW. For a certain tribe in our society, those frequencies are as familiar as their own childhood telephone number. Frequency modulation and long wave. Those matter. The DAB digital radio, Freesat, Sky or Virgin Media addresses for Radio 4 do not. Shibboleths are crucial whether you’re trying to stop Ephraimites from crossing the River Jordan, or you’re trying to identify yourself with the last hold out of the Reithian mandate to inform, educate, and entertain. Alfie Moore’s, ‘It’s a Fair Cop’ is the latest in a long line of exquisitely produced audio content that has set the gold-pressed latinum standard since 30 September 1967.

We enter to find Bedfringe’s main stage rigged for standup which is appropriate because Alfie Moore is a standup comedian. What has set him apart from the anonymous herd of edgeless blethers and anxiety-including also rants is that for twenty years Moorse was an officer with Humberside Police, serving his communities to make them safer and stronger. In other words, Alfie Moore has something to talk about, a rich vein of thought-provoking tragi-comic material that is worth hearing.

I’m a Radio 4 baby with a Brian Redhead beard, I don’t like crowds so I’ve sneaked a solitary seat in the sort-of-but-not-entirely-closed-upstairs, extreme stage-right, opposite the Royal/Presidential Box. From my superb vantage point, I can see down onto Moore’s colour-coded show notes as well as his occasional kindly stern glances up in my direction which leaves me feeling that the very best course of action for me to take is to confess everything – I did it. I did go through a door clearly marked “no entry” to get here. I did see the sign. I do like feeling importanterer and betterer than everyone, even my own Radio 4 people.

The show notes steer the conversation, and it is a conversation, between Moore and his audience. Like his radio show, with its 1m+ listeners, the conversation focuses on the choices made each and every day by ordinary men and women wearing the Queen’s uniform. Would we get to the scene of a possible burglary with lights and sirens flashing? Knowing the suspect is possibly on the premises, would we wait for backup? How would we identify ourselves? What’s the actual crime here? BTW breaking and entering is an American import and not a British legal concept, Moore informs us, but he would say that, he’s with the Feds.

By curtain call, we’ve gained an insight into life on the beat told by a storyteller with a natural gift whose talent has been honed and sharpened in the cultural nursery equivalent of Kew Gardens. We leave knowing more (informed, tick); with a broader understanding of the context of what we’ve learned (educated, tick); and we’ve laughed – a lot – (entertained, tic). In the Disney+ adaptation of Alfie Moore’s, ‘It’s a Fair Cop’ we can imagine the bright-eyed ex-copper looking up at James Cromwell, the taciturn actor playing Lord Reith, who smiles down just as he did in the final scene of Babe. They share in the glory and the crowd’s adulation before Cromwell, as Reith whispers, “That’ll do pig. That’ll do.”

 

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘Life Under The Sun’ (Bedfringe, 23 July 2022)

Posted in 4*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“Here is the man who has everything – limitless wine on tap and over 700 women to tap. He is fabulously wealthy, his country is at peace, his people are (for the most part) content. But what on Earth is the point of it all?”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

A person born in the 5th century BC could, theoretically, have met Socrates, The Buddha, Zoroaster, and a host of other top-shelf thinkers. Gore Vidal wrote a novel with that premise. His protagonist, a Persian ambassador, crosses the world, from Athens to China and back again, but takes no interest that part of the world inhabited by Solomon the Wise and his descendants. Rabbinic tradition holds that Ecclesiastes was written by the King in his auld age (in the 930s BC) and yet the presence in the text of many Persian loanwords, some scholars argue, points to a composition date no earlier than about 450 BCE. Was Soloman a precursor, or was he a contemporary, of the great minds Gore’s fictional ambassador encountered?

We enter to find a stage empty but for a tall chair. Stephen Bathurst – BA (Hons) Acting, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire – enters as a herald announcing the imminent arrival of King Solomon who is due to give a state of the nation address to his people. Bathurst exits and Solomon enters. He’s a less than impressive figure. Tired. Bored. Drunk. Slumped in his underwear. Here is the man who has everything – limitless wine on tap and over 700 women to tap. He is fabulously wealthy, his country is at peace, his people are (for the most part) content. But what on Earth is the point of it all? Life! Don’t talk to me about life!

What follows is an up close and personal meditation on Solomon – the man beneath the legend, the monarch behind the glamour. Bathurst’s delivery (despite the underpants paired with a hot pink feather boa) is anything but camp. This is not John Hurt’s Caligula in TV’s I, Claudius. Comic interactions with the audience, including a freshly hired and much put-upon Royal Cupbearer, push but never entirely break the magic. Here, laid bare, is one of history’s most recognisable individuals utterly lost, dwarfed firstly by his own accomplishments and then, in great auld age, put mercilessly into the total perspective vortex by the infinity of creation.

In the Q&A that follows this pacy and poignant monologue, Bathurst ponders on the high rates of depression and suicide in his adoptive Scandinavian homeland. How can people who have so much feel so empty? There is an answer. There is The Answer. But this is a show about the BIG question no single human being has ever entirely answered. Few works of visual art down the centuries can boast of matching Scripture’s vision of Solomon’s magnificent desolation as it is rendered in Holy prose. Bathurst’s startling and ambitious ‘Life Under The Sun’ is one of them.

 

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘The Same Rain That Falls On Me’ (Bedfringe, 23 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“As Alice, Ella McKeown is utterly believable. As the sorrow pours out of her, you want to leap out of your seat, bring her a hot chocolate – one with those little pink and white marshmallows – and tell her it’s all going to be OK.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Life is short. The space between our first entrance and our final exit is horribly, unforgivably short. ‘The Same Rain That Falls On Me’ is Alice’s story of coming home from uni on the hottest day of the year to be present at her father’s death. Through the traffic, the climate change disruption, the stifling train, the stiff matriarch, the expecting brother and sister-in-law, and the very young niece oblivious to the slow-moving trauma engulfing an ordinary family.

Logan Jones’ monologue – first written for the York Theatre Royal’s Takeover Festival in 2019 – is a beat-by-beat chronicle of the end of life in the context of everything else carrying on as usual. The drama is subtle and understated. The staging is minimal, just a chair. The lighting changes are small enough to make you wonder if they are being made at all. Yet the overall effect is like being hit by a wave of raw, dramatic energy. Equal parts invigorating and enervating. As safeguarding professionals are forever saying – it’s the impact, not the incident.

As Alice, Ella McKeown is utterly believable. As the sorrow pours out of her, you want to leap out of your seat, bring her a hot chocolate – one with those little pink and white marshmallows – and tell her it’s all going to be OK. It’s an astonishing performance. Every stitch of canvas aligned perfectly to capture the domestic sturm und drang.

The most experienced and clued-up punters at any Fringe festival – and there are plenty in the audience today – will always check in with the venue staff for the inside tips as to what’s hot and what’s hotter. The consensus is in. Ricochet Theatre are THE company to watch.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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‘An Evening With The Two Toms’ (Bedfringe, 22 July 2022)

Posted in 5*, Bedfringe 2022 by

“It’s a tribute to the eclectic and far-reaching magnetism of the two Tom cats that so many people, from so many different walks of life, have beat a path to this gig.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Nae Bad)

One is the dapper chap whose viral hit stuck a banjolele chord with anyone who’s ever been mildly cheesed off by life, the universe, and/or everything. The other is an ivory tickler whose weekly Cockney Singalongs became a welcome refuge for a global audience in the darkest days of Lockdown. Together they are the Two Toms, Thomas Benjamin Wilde Esq. and Tom Carradine. Full disclosure, I’m a massive fan of both.

For only the second time in recorded history – this history is recorded on vinyl BTW – The Two Toms are appearing on the same stage in an act of collaborative sharing that would have the nation’s nursery school teachers dishing out ‘star of the day stickers’ like they were going out of fashion. It’s a game of three halves. One half is pure Carradine’s Cockney Singalong – replete with music hall favourites auld and new (‘ave a banana); One half is uncut Thomas Benjamin Wilde Esq. banging out his new cult classics and best-loved covers on a range of string instruments including one of the best set of vocal chords in the solar system; The final half is The Two Toms together, as perfectly balanced as a penny-farthing peddling away down the road of life.

I’m sitting between a much-respected American theatre-maker, in town on his way up to Edinburgh, and the bloke who does security at the Twinwood Vintage Festival – he’s the dude who’ll bounce you out for wearing 50s era buttons on the 40s three-piece, or having a nylon ribbon on your straw boater. It’s a tribute to the eclectic and far-reaching magnetism of the two Tom cats that so many people, from so many different walks of life, have beat a path to this gig. There is magic abroad in the air.

The show is still finding its feet. Gremlins make mischief with the slide projector (not that this crowd needs to be reminded of the lyrics), and there’s a hefty overrun which would have been ruinous at Edinburgh, where eye-watering fines per minute discourage acts from disrupting the festival-goers’ tight schedules. But the artistry is not a work in progress. It’s the product of those hundreds of hours which musicians must sow in private in order to reap the public rewards. The harvest is a fine one, with promises of truly magnificent vintages to come.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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Bedfringe 2021 Interview: The Geneva Convention of Human F**Ks

Posted in Bedfringe 2022 by

“I guess we have been too busy to actually realise what we have learnt from this year just yet.”

WHO: Charlie Whitworth: Writer and Director

WHAT: “The Geneva Convention of Human F**ks tells the story of three men as they go on their latest sex tour of Europe. Set just before COVID hits, we follow Michael, Liam and Peter as they describe the various brothels, prostitutes and more obscure sexual offerings that they encounter. In this time they tackle their ethics around various issues such as prostitution, #metoo, sex trafficking and even global warming.

Performed entirely by women performers, the show is a sometimes funny, sometimes groan-inducing exploration of toxic masculinity, sex tourism and the friendship between three men.
Written and Directed by company co-founder Charlie Whitworth, this shows launches Yet To Be with its mission to create original, punchy and entertaining work for audiences.”

WHERE: Quarry Theatre

WHEN: 26 July 2022 @ 21:15 (55mins)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Bedfringe?

This is my first time coming to Bedfringe but it is not the first time for Yet To Be’s co-founder Marina O’Shea. She has brought work here a few times and she is super excited about bringing our show “Geneva” to Bedfringe as she has had such great experiences at the festival in the past. As for me – I’m a complete newbie to the festival!

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2021 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

Well, Yet To Be have been on Exeter Northcott Theatre’s “Futures” programme this year which is an artist development programme. Marina and I are I guess what you would call “mid-career” but Yet To Be as a company is a baby and we want to make sure we get it right. We’ve been busy developing a new show for the Northcott called “Free Will & Other Myths” whilst we’ve been putting the finishing touches on the show we are taking to Bedfringe, Geneva… So I guess we have been too busy to actually realise what we have learnt from this year just yet.

Tell us about your show.

The Geneva Convention of Human F**ks tells the story of three men as they go on their latest sex tour of Europe. Set just before COVID hits, we follow Michael, Liam and Peter as they describe the various brothels, prostitutes and more obscure sexual offerings that they encounter. In this time they tackle their ethics around various issues such as prostitution, #metoo, sex trafficking and even global warming. Performed entirely by women performers, the show is a sometimes funny, sometimes groan-inducing exploration of toxic masculinity, sex tourism and the friendship between three men.

What should your audience see at Bedfringe after they’ve seen your show?

Well, I’m pretty sure these two shows are actually on BEFORE us but we reckon people should check out the two show by Ricochet Theatre on at Bedfringe called The Same Rain That Falls on Me & Intricate Rituals. Ricochet are lovely and we think you’d be fools to miss their shows.

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Bedfringe 2021 Interview: The First Broadcast: The Battle for the Beeb in 1922

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“My first time at Bedfringe was in 1985/1955/2015/1885. My second time at Bedfringe will be 1922.”

WHO: Paul Kerensa: Writer/Performer/Creator/Dogsbody

WHAT: “It’s the centenary year of the BBC! By Christmas 1922, the British Broadcasting Company had 30,000 listeners but only four employees. Who were they?

In ‘The First Broadcast’, a new comic historical one-man ‘stand-up history’  show, comedian, writer and broadcaster Paul Kerensa brings to life two of the BBC’s forgotten pioneers – Arthur Burrows and Peter Eckersley.

Both worked for The Marconi Company, where they squabbled, mocked and generally disagreed about what this new radio thing should be. One has grand ideas of bringing opera to people’s homes via a small box in the corner. The other is the pre-Goon Goon, covering records in jam, creating the first radio quiz, and impersonating opera singers.

In this live one-man show, based on The British Broadcasting Century Podcast, Paul plays both men, bringing to life those early broadcasts and the rivalry that spawned an industry. Expect to be informed, educated, but above all entertained.”

WHERE: Quarry Theatre

WHEN: 31 July 2022 @ 16:00 (60mins)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Bedfringe?

I’ve been to Bedfringe once before, with Back to the Futon: a tribute show to Back to the Future. Why just do jokes when you can cling to cultural history, and spend far too much researching and re-enacting something incredibly difficult to bring to life? That’s what I did then with Back to the Future – that’s what I’m doing this time with the first BBC broadcasts. So my first time at Bedfringe was in 1985/1955/2015/1885. My second time at Bedfringe will be 1922. It’s a cracking festival full of lovely people. Honestly it’s the people that make the festival. The venues, the organisation, the shows themselves… all great, but it all flows from good old-fashioned decent people putting on something they believe in. (Alright, pipe down the strings, I’m going to start welling up. Clearly it’s been too long without festivals – I’m starting to get emotional.)

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2021 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I’m always learning, with each performance. Part of the joy/curse of being a stand-up, is that everything is work-in-progress. This new show I’m doing is in theory a one-man play, but I found when writing it and previewing it, that I can’t finish it. If I were an actor (but then again, no…), I’d write, rehearse and finish a thing. But the stand-up in me says no! Far more fun to have some fun with it, learn the script, forget it again, play with it, try new things, change it a little each time. Festivals are a joy to have the chance to do this – don’t tell Leicester, but their festival is first in the calendar, in February, so every year, performers turn up there with half an idea on the back of a coaster. By Bedfringe though, we have a finished show. Well, unfinished. See above. I never finish anything. Not even a sentenc

Tell us about your show.

100 years ago, the BBC began. But not only that, 100 years ago, pre-BBC radio began too. Britain’s first regular broadcasting station had a wild Kenny Everett-style presenter who’d cover records in jam, impersonate opera singers, overrun the time allowed in the government licence… and he’d go on to become the BBC’s first Chief Engineer. So I’m recreating his broadcasts, and the first BBC broadcasts, and telling the tale of how it all came together. It’s a true tale I’ve been researching for years. I run a podcast on it (The British Broadcasting Century podcast) and I’m writing a novel about it (Auntie and Uncles, due out this autumn). But the live tour has been great to bring these forgotten voices to life.

What should your audience see at Bedfringe after they’ve seen your show?

23 July at the Quarry is packed with great performers I just love – Alfie Moore’s cop show, Kev Sutherland’s Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre Co (he’s been doing it for years – his arms must be knackered), and Simon Munnery is just a marvel whose comedy deserves to be wrapped in cotton wool and stored in a museum. Head there exactly a week later and you get Max Fulham, a cracking ventriloquist who’s absolutely going places. Mitch Benn’s musical comedy is there that day too, as is the fab Juliette Burton, who’s always got something to say and a great attitude to say it. I’ve missed out a couple of dozen other great acts. Just go to all of it. You’re in for a treat.

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Bedfringe 2021 Interview: An Evening With The 2 Toms

Posted in Bedfringe 2022 by

“As well as being just round the corner from my house, Bedfringe has always been a great festival to be involved in. James and the team are an absolute joy to work with.”

WHO: Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq: Performer

WHAT: “Join viral star Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq. and London cabaret virtuoso Tom Carradine for an evening of sing-along-fun and musical humour! You can expect plenty of laughter, raucous audience participation and, if you’re lucky, they may even play a song or 2 together!”

WHERE: Quarry Theatre

WHEN: 22 July 2022 @ 19:00 (60mins)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Bedfringe?

This is my 3rd Bedfringe (Thomas B. Wild Esq) but it will be Tom Carradine’s first. I have not done a full show in the main theatre before (on other years I’ve performed in the garden or bar) so this will be my 1st time doing that. As well as being just round the corner from my house, Bedfringe has always been a great festival to be involved in. James and the team are an absolute joy to work with and make the whole experience very easy. There is always a diverse range of acts and the venue(s) are offer great facilities for producers, performers and punters alike.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2021 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

Since my last visit to Bedfringe, I finally managed to finish my 2020 tour (I had lots of re-scheduled shows) and I managed to record a new album of original songs which came out just before Christmas. 2022 has been mostly focused on arranging shows and making connections with other artists. To be honest it’s been a bit of a whirlwind now that we’re able to play in front of actual audiences again and I haven’t really had time to think! I have got a lot better at recording music in my home studio (spare room) though! Tom Carradine has been continuing his online shows but has also been able get back to in person gigs (and has even found the time to record piano and accordion for some of my album tracks!) We’ve even been discussing the prospect of some international shows, if this all goes well!

Tell us about your show.

This will only be the 2nd time we’ve performed this show together! The best way of describing it is raucous, sing-along fun. Tom C’s part of the show consists of songs that everybody will know (and the lyrics will be on hand just in case) and my part half is perfect for after those interval drinks! The suggestion for us to combine forces came from GetYourCoatsOn’s very own Dan Lentell, so we hope he’s happy with himself (and he’d better write us a good review!)

What should your audience see at Bedfringe after they’ve seen your show?

I’m looking forward to so many acts this year! Of course, Dave Alnwick is always excellent as are Marcel Lucont and Luke Kempner, and I discovered the hilarious Shelf comedy online last year so I look forward to seeing them live. There is also the fabulous Coor Brow Obles on the garden stage again, as well as all the acts being put on for the Blender takeover. So much great stuff to see on my doorstep! I will have to try and convince Tom Carradine stick around for a bit!

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