“Back in 2004 we were two of those wide-eyed fresh-livered first-year students who ran around the Royal Mile trying to figure out creative ways to get rid of our allocated flyers.”
WHO: Mannish: Performer
WHAT: “Ten years since they burst onto the scene with their wildly popular brand of musical infotainment, Frisky & Mannish are officially Pop PhDs, fully qualified to conduct scientific analyses of the molecular intersections between every pop song ever. Shameless Edinburgh Fringe sell-outs since 2009. International jet-setters from Shepherd’s Bush Empire to Sydney Opera House. Adelaide and Brighton prize winners. Featured on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Three. And they have a podcast, obvs.”
WHERE: Assembly George Square Gardens – Palais du Variete (Venue 3)
WHEN: 19:00 (60 min)
MORE: Click Here!
Is this your first time to Edinburgh?
First time to Edinburgh? Don’t make us laugh! One or other of us has been to every Fringe for the last fifteen years. It’s a home away from home. We know some of the shopkeepers. It’s not unlikely one of our children may be named Edinburgh at some point. Back in 2004 we were two of those wide-eyed fresh-livered first-year students who ran around the Royal Mile trying to figure out creative ways to get rid of our allocated flyers. In 2009 our years of prep paid off when we had a bonafide Fringe hit with the first Frisky & Mannish show. Ten years on from that success, having enjoyed many sell-outs in between, we’re back at Assembly for a celebration of our decade of pop silliness. Nowhere else we’d rather be.
What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?
Frisky gave birth to a tiny bundle of joy who is the cutest ever. Can’t get bigger than that. Well, obviously in terms of size alone, you can in fact get way bigger than that, cos most things are bigger than tiny baby Frisky, but in terms of biggest things to happen to a person, that’s probably one of the biggest. Mannish has not given birth… yet. But he has been in the Caribbean for six months and came back with an actual bit of colour so that was no small miracle. This is the man of whom one Scottish reviewer applied the description “peely-wally pianist” back in 2009 – apparently peely-wally means “pale to the point of having a serious illness.”
Tell us about your show.
Our show this year is called PopLab and it’s set in Frisky & Mannish’s laboratory of pop music where we do experiments, create alloys, research vaccines, study fossils and generally pull apart the molecules of pop. The reason we’ve done this is because we need a paper-thin and flexible concept to string together all of our bonkers parodies of pop stars both classic and modern. All you need to do is remember the immortal words of Jennifer Aniston in that hair advert and “concentrate.” We will be arriving in Edinburgh from a preview tour that takes in London, Wales, Oxford, Manchester and even Australia, so we should be damn honed by the time you get it. And then afterwards we’re schlepping ourselves around the UK on a 22-date tour in September-October. We’re suckers for punishment, yes.
What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?
Nothing. There’s literally no other show worth spending money on. Even the free ones aren’t worth the time taken. No one has put work into it, there’s not an ounce of passion in anything – our show is the only one. And Christina Bianco’s is good too.
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