In 1981 Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Tony Slattery, a then-unknown group of fresh-faced university students, made their debut at Edinburgh Fringe Festival as the “Cambridge Footlights.” (Search YouTube, it’s out there!) Fourteen years ago, Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne sung his heart out in Cabaret at Edinburgh Fringe. Funnymen Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese both had audiences in hysterics when they performed at Fringe. In fact, it was at the festival in 1976 that Atkinson was spotted by television producer John Lloyd. “I rushed backstage after the show and introduced myself. I was convinced he would be more famous than Chaplin,” described Lloyd.
This year, over 3,000 shows (stand-up, cabaret, circus acts, variety shows, musical numbers, you name it) took place over three weeks in Edinburgh, where we caught up with some of the most promising acts from 2015, including the hilarious, ever-observant James Veitch, the witty Jena Friedman, the button-pushing Bridget Christie, and many more.
James Veitch
James Veitch is a musician, comedian, director, writer, and performer. He has just published his first book, [Dot Con(Quadrille)] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dot-Con-James-Veitch/dp/184949651X/), which catalogues two years of e-mail correspondence between Veitch and online scammers—the marooned friend who needs a little help from you and Western Union, the Nigerian heir—it’s all in here. His show Genius Bar catalogues his experience working in—you guessed it—an Apple Genius Bar. Veitch once made up a full-length (and very humorous) song on the spot and sang it to your correspondent in front of the entire clientele of Shoreditch House when I was having a bad day. My favorite lyrics included “Dear Bridget, I’m sorry I slept with your sister” (I don’t have a sister!) and “I called out your name by accident and she got really annoyed.”
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
James Veitch: It feels like a really, really long sneeze. The anticipation is amazing, but then when it’s happening you have no idea what the fuck is going on. It’s enjoyable, but afterwards you have to look around and check how everyone feels about what just happened. Then you start looking forward to the next sneeze.
What is your greatest fear?
That someone will ask me what makes me funny.
__ What makes you funny?__
I suspect I wasn’t loved enough as a child. That and my glasses.
What talent would you most like to have?
I’d really like to be able to whistle with two fingers. Is this a biological thing? Is it to do with the teeth? Who teaches people to do this? How do I learn?
Jena Friedman
Currently a field producer at The Daily Show, Jena Friedman is also a comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker. The Web series she wrote, Ted & Gracie, was a spoof of The New York Times’s wedding videos that was so spot-on it earned her a cease and desist letter from the publication. And she’s prolific: her work has been featured at South by Southwest, the New York Fringe Festival, the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, and Comedy Central, among many others. American Cunt (not an insult your correspondent is whipping at her) is the name of her honest and confrontational show about life, sex, and politics (not in that order).
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Jena Friedman: A hug from a dead loved one you never got to say good-bye to . . . Sorry, is that too bleak? I’ve been in the U.K. for a week. These wonderfully dark audiences are really bringing out my morbid sensibilities.
What is your greatest fear?
That’s such a personal question; ask me how many people I’ve slept with.
What makes you funny?
My stance on Israel!
What talent would you most like to have?
Being invisible, which I can look forward to once I turn 50.
Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel (Cariad Lloyd, Rachel Parris, Joseph Morpurgo, Amy Cooke-Hodgson, Andrew Hunter Murray, Graham Dickson, and Charlotte Gittins)
What happens when a room full of rowdy strangers offers up their ideal title to a yet-to-be-written Jane Austen novel, and then a group of period-costumed actors have to instantaneously perform it, all set to live music? Go see Austentatious to find out. Oh, and did we mention that at this year’s festival Emma Thompson popped by to watch them? It didn’t hurt the group that 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of Austen’s * Emma*.
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Austentatious: We improvise a Jane Austen–style story from scratch—every show is completely different! So for us, a perfect show is mostly like an Austen novel: playful, full of energy, intriguing, heartfelt, and very funny. It is always a good sign when we are making each other laugh from the wings!
What is your greatest fear?
Falling prey to a Wickham or a Willoughby (or would it be so bad . . . ?).
What makes you funny?
Watching six people act out a made-up story as they go along, in period costume, is hard not to laugh at! Also we have closely studied the Prince Regent’s annual periodical of approved puns.
What talent would you most like to have?
To dance a cotillion for six hours straight without falling over. To incite a flirtation with only the flick of a fan. To hypnotize Darcy into jumping into lakes more often.
Tats Nkonzo
Tats Nkonzo is already a household name in his home country, South Africa, where he hosts South Africa’s Got Talent and was a writer and performer on the International Emmy–nominated satirical show Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola; and the rest of the globe is finally taking notice. This year was his Edinburgh debut with the show The African with Wi-Fi. “I wrote this show so I could tell the world how Simba really felt after Mufasa’s death. The people deserve to know the truth,” quips Nkonzo on the show’s description page. And no, it’s not really about that. Instead he breaks down stereotypes and prejudice (all with light bursts of musical interludes); he’s funny and thought provoking, and has the two in perfect balance.
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Tats Nkonzo: It feels like a really great dinner that ended right on time, where everybody could still go home and not feel like they are going to miss work tomorrow, or that they had too much to drink. It is the perfect dinner around the table, with enough laughs, enough interesting stories, and everybody being involved. So, as a host—I guess that would be me—it is always great when I feel like the audience gave as well: so somebody brought the dessert, somebody brought the wine, and I just said, “Hey, guys, The African with Wi-Fi at 9:30.” Then everybody just comes to the party and it’s a good time.
What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear as an artist is that I am forever going to be in a constant state of self-doubt. That I am never going to actually check and realize I am awesome, and then just live in that frequency of awesome.
What makes you funny?
What makes me a comedian is the ability to make things funny. If we are walking down the street and somebody falls on a banana peel, we will both laugh, just because it is funny. But, if we are walking down the street and I see a castle, a really beautiful castle, and I say something that makes you laugh, then I made that castle funny, because, inherently, the castle is not a funny thing to look at.
What talent would you most like to have?
The ability to see a girl and get her to like me—that would be awesome because it is a superpower.
Ivo Graham
The youngest-ever winner of the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny Award for new acts at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in 2009, Ivo Graham has steadily collected fans and followers since launching his career at 18. Graham is both Eton and Oxford educated, accolades that he uses to great self-deprecating comedy throughout his stand-up. His two solo shows, 2013’s Binoculars and 2014’s Bow Ties & Johnnies, had sold-out runs at both the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and London’s Soho Theatre. His hour-long Edinburgh show, No Filter, is a more mature (he’s 24 now) musing on the pomp and privilege of his life—his pedantic texting prowess is our favorite bit.
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Ivo Graham: It feels like I might not be letting down my family and wasting my education. But that feeling never lasts all that long.
What is your greatest fear?
Rats, or my parents opening my bank statements.
What makes you funny?
The jokes I spend long hours trying to think up in cafés and libraries. My personality alone is not enough.
What talent would you most like to have?
It’s a dead heat between being able to perfectly impersonate anyone I met and being able to fast-forward TV ads at 32x without overshooting.
Katia Kvinge
At acting and clown school, Katia Kvinge worked under Philippe Gaulier, known, among other things, as a mentor to the king of slapstick Sacha Baron Cohen. And so, Kvinge had no trouble selling-out her Edinburgh sketch show from 2011 to 2013. In 2014 her one-woman production 140 Karacters—and it is that, a clasp of characters and personas that she’s created, all squeezed into one 45-minute act—was met with a deluge of impressive reviews. Look out for her stateside as she is currently in the Los Angeles Second City conservatory.
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Katia Kvinge: It feels like you and the audience are all on a high and you are all riding this wave of laughter and fun and maybe you’ve all learnt a thing or two along the way.
What is your greatest fear?
Apart from the fear of living in a dystopian world with inequality and lack of social justice, I still also have a childhood fear of quicksand even though it plays a much smaller role in my life than I imagined it would have when I was a kid.
What makes you funny?
Being goofy and idiotic by nature.
What talent would you most like to have?
I would like to be able to speak all the languages!
Bridget Christie
Bridget Christie has been consistently collecting awards and nominations since she started out, and in 2014 she won the Chortle Award (one of the U.K.’s top comedy prizes). Part launch for A Book for Her: And Him, if He Can Read (Century), her show at Edinburgh this year was among the most lauded. And as the inimitable Caitlin Moran proclaims, Christie is “a cool, clear glass of sane in a world of unbearable woo-hoo.”
Vanity Fair: What does a perfect show feel like?
Bridge Christie: I don’t know. I’ve never had that feeling—that I’d done a perfect show. I’ve done good shows, where everything’s worked and they’ve laughed in all the right places, but I usually think I could’ve done something slightly better.
What is your greatest fear?
Waking up with a rat on my face.
What makes you funny?
No idea. My teeth?
