Ollie Horn: Hello and welcome back to the Edinburgh Fringe Comedy Podcast. It's Ollie Horn here, joined with a live audience here at the Edinburgh Fringe. Make some noise!
Audience: (Cheering) Woo!
Ollie Horn: Only six of them did today. This is the podcast where we interview comedians here at the Edinburgh Fringe. The plan is to find out a little bit about their background, what projects they're doing, and what insider information they have in order to make sure that the people who are listening to this podcast can get the best out of their trip to the festival. Very special guest today, very excited to have him on. I'm not going to waffle; I'm going to let him do his own introduction. Put your hands together for Stuart Laws!
Stuart Laws: Hello.
Ollie Horn: Hello, good morning. So Stuart, so far on this podcast—this is the third one we've recorded—we had Nathan Cassidy, founder of the ISH Comedy Awards; we had David Hoare, winner of the Musical Comedy Awards; and now we've got you.
Stuart Laws: I don't think I've not set up an award or won an award.
Ollie Horn: Right.
Stuart Laws: Yeah. So do we want to kick me off now?
Ollie Horn: No, because I think a lineage of three straight white men to get the podcast started is how it should be. That's perfect. This is a counter-cultural thing to bring podcasting back to its roots, of just men blabbering on. Welcome to the show!
So Stuart, you do a lot at the Fringe, don't you? Because you're not just a performer, you're also a producer, director... There's a lot I want to talk to you about. But let's just set a bit of context for people that don't know who you are. What are you doing this year?
Stuart Laws: What am I doing this year is a show called Late Night with Stuart Laws. It is 12 nights of just trying a different thing every single night. So far, I have managed that. Last night, I had Pierre Novellie as a guest on the show. We both did a bit of stand-up and then we chatted for 30–35 minutes about autism, which is something that we both have in common. Turns out, pretty funny.
Ollie Horn: Yeah, great. And Pierre wrote a book about his...
Stuart Laws: Pierre wrote the book on it, and I read the book on it. So we're both equally qualified. He actually sent me the manuscript in advance to be like, "This book is intended for people like you. Would you mind having a read through and giving me any thoughts or notes?" And it was such a weird thing going through it, reading a chapter and being like, "Ah, that's what that is. Okay."
Ollie Horn: Was that your friend's way of saying, "I think you might have autism"?
Stuart Laws: He'd already bitten me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how it passes.
Ollie Horn: Fair enough. I love this. One of the things we've talked about on the podcast before is how, for some acts, the Fringe is not a playground. For some acts, the Fringe is a real perilous, difficult endurance race where they've put all of their eggs in one basket. They've got one show that they sort of think, "If this show doesn't work, if this doesn't break through, if I don't get an award or a tour, it's all been a waste of time."
Whereas I don't think like that at all. I come to the Fringe every year with: What's the most insane thing I can do? Or What's the most creative thing I can do? I'm really not thinking too much about the money side of things, because I also do normal stand-up shows which pay the bills. And that's one of the things I really like about you. Let me talk about your Michael Caine show, for example, as one example of something which no TV exec would say yes to.
Stuart Laws: Sure. That's sort of what I've made. So, I run a production company. We make a lot of comedy, and I set it up when I was 18 straight out of school, just doing corporate videos and using that money to pay to make our own stuff. Weirdly now, 22 years later, that is still happening.
And I'm not sure... When I started at 18, people were just like, "Oh, good on you, kid." And I think that is to do with privilege and being a white guy. People were like, "Good on you." And I think people opened doors for us that perhaps wouldn't have been opened as easily for other people. So, very appreciative of that.
And then doing comedy, I started to be like, "Oh, I'm friends with a lot of people who do excellent comedy." We basically got sidetracked doing way more corporate filmmaking, and I was like, "I don't like this. I want to try and veer us back to what we originally started." So now we end up doing a lot of comedy. Literally this week, we just shot James Acaster's special at the start of this week at the Fringe, which was very exciting.
Ollie Horn: And this isn't your first James Acaster project, is it?
Stuart Laws: No, we've done all of his specials, which is very exciting. We've done Netflix, he self-released his second one—which is like one of the most revered comedy specials of all time—and then the next one was on HBO, which was filmed in the round with 2,000 people and 16 cameras. And then this one was 150 people in a basement in Edinburgh because the show theme called for this more "fringey" experience.
Ollie Horn: Perfect. I'm going to leave a quick mark here. Let me do a quick detour. Something that I think Fringe-goers appreciate more than regular comedy-goers is how much, with a venue, the medium is the message. I often think when I'm developing a show or writing a show, I'm sort of imagining the venue that I'm going to be in.
And I think that's something that more and more people who are filming their specials are realizing too: that the aesthetic, the look, the venue, the vibe all play a part in the experience.
Stuart Laws: 100%. Yeah, and it's something that I've been directing comedy specials for over 10 years now. A lot of people are like, "Well, you just put a few cameras on and point it at the performer, straightforward, done." And we have today. But where you can elevate it are small things to do with venue, how the camera operators operate the camera, different movement styles, how you light it...
When we did Nish Kumar's last special, we treated it more like a concert film. His reference points were Otis Redding's concert film and Stop Making Sense, which is the Talking Heads concert film that Jonathan Demme directed. I had just finished rewatching it, and I texted Nish being like, "Love Stop Making Sense, what's this for you?" And he was like, "I was about to message you and say that should be one of the reference points."
Ollie Horn: No way, that's awesome.
Stuart Laws: Yeah. And then vintage '70s lenses, where we were like, "Right, we're going to pay extra money to get these beautiful lenses." And then we're going to do Dutch angles. A Dutch angle is if you've got a regular framed angle on someone, if you tilt it like that—it's used a lot in horror to create a sense of uncertainty. De Palma uses it; Mission: Impossible is maybe his biggest film, the original.
Lots of zoom lenses where the shot is right at the end of the lens, fully zoomed in, where you get these naturalistic aberrations to it, where the focus is off in certain parts of the picture and everything just looks a little organic.
Because at the end of Nish's show, he gets into quite a personal monologue sort of thing—it's very interesting, very funny, sort of a dramatic end to the show. So the camera operator, who was on the third row on a slider, had to, at the start of that bit, adjust the angle of the camera on the tripod head so that by the end of the slide, their pre-planned shot started wide and ended fully zoomed in on a full Dutch angle to create this increasing intensity to his monologue. And just watching that back on the big screen, I was like, "Oh, we have made a concert film."
Ollie Horn: Great.
Stuart Laws: Now, that's obviously not right for everything. I shot mine recently in three different venues. I had the same backdrop in each venue, but it's very obviously in different venues, and we cut between them. The appeal of that is to create this energy of: Oh, he's doing the same show, but it goes differently in different rooms.
I have shown crowd work bits repeat, showing: Here's where it went differently here to here to here. On one punchline, I did say to myself at the start, "I hope one of the venues doesn't go that well, because it'd be funny to have..."
Ollie Horn: Absolutely, yeah!
Stuart Laws: Two of them had gone well, and then when the third one happened and it was just a fine response, I was just like, "Ugh, why did I wish for it to go like this?" But I did include that! On one of the jokes which gets a huge response in one room, I cut back 15 seconds to show it again in the room where it went fine, because it is funny to show that jokes don't go over every single time.
Ollie Horn: Yes.
Stuart Laws: That's just the nature of the room. Sometimes comedians are very keen to blame audiences. I don't think that—there's so many factors. You know, like, let's talk about this room: this overhead lighting is probably distracting to some people. These seats are actually probably the right level of comfortable, but sometimes seats are too comfortable, and that's bad for comedy because people start to relax into it. You subconsciously have elements where you're like, "Oh, something feels wrong or off."
Ollie Horn: Something that the best comedian in the world, Joe Pasquale, said...
Stuart Laws: What?
Ollie Horn: He's not dead! He said something really insightful that I think about a lot, which is: The audience are also performers. I think you can get so much from that bit of wisdom. Comedy has to happen in front of an audience because a comedian is not just talking, but listening and reacting. You're communicating through the quality of your laughter, the duration of your laughter, the style of laughter.
This is why I'd now like to go back to the James Acaster thing. Why would a comedian such as James want to perform a show to a small crowd in imperfect conditions?
Stuart Laws: So he, you know, is huge. I started comedy with him, basically. I opened for him in the early years when he had a support act, and we've made lots of things together. We've done web series, we worked on...
Ollie Horn: Did you do his Kettering web series?
Stuart Laws: Yeah, yeah.
Ollie Horn: I didn't know that! That's great.
Stuart Laws: Lots of fun things. We did a documentary where we went back to his hometown and followed him around, but it was like a joke about no one knowing who he was. And this was before he was actually famous anyway!
We did a Kickstarter for a second series. We raised like £4,500 and went to Germany, to Lahnstein, which is the twin town of Kettering, and then did another six episodes there. Very fun, we learned so much.
And at the time, we couldn't believe that we'd raised £4,500. I could borrow the camera from the production company, go out there, and edit it all myself. We had Emma Sidi, who's now on SNL UK, come out for the Germany one. Jack Barry, who's an absolute fantastic stand-up, came out.
To bring it back, you mentioned the Michael Caine show at the beginning. In the pandemic, when comedy was difficult...
Ollie Horn: Which, by the way, I haven't seen, but I've known enough people that have seen it, and I know how good you are to know that would be brilliant. Can you just explain what the show is quickly?
Stuart Laws: So yeah, I did a video of Michael Caine in the film Batman Begins trying to say the line "Never" correctly. I think it's one of the wildest line readings in a film ever. I love it. Bruce Wayne just says, "You still haven't given up on me." And then he looks at him and goes, "Nev-ah!"
And I think it's funny! I did a video—I was joking about it with a couple of people—doing the voice of Christopher Nolan directing him off-screen, and him just going, "Nev-ah!" Like, lots of crazy variants of it.
I put it out, forgot about it, went about my day in June of the pandemic, came back a few hours later, and on Twitter it had popped off. Lead singer of Blink-182 had retweeted it. Teenage me was like, "Oh my god, Mark Hoppus likes me!"
A few years later, I made a joke post that I was doing a live version of Stuart Laws as Michael Caine Saying "Never" at the London Palladium. Thought it'd be a funny thing to post out. Someone was like, "I thought this was real, I'm now genuinely quite sad." So then I messaged Monkey Barrel, where I've done my shows for the last few years: "Look, if you've got a one-off, this is an idea."
They replied in July saying, "Yep, here's a date, is this good for you?" And I was like, "Oh, I guess my bluff has been called. I now have to do Stuart Laws as Michael Caine saying 'Never' for one hour. I don't know what that is!"
So I said yes. I texted Nish Kumar: "Would you want to play Christopher Nolan?" I think he's one of the best stand-up comedians at the moment, he also is obsessed with Christopher Nolan and knows everything, so safest hands you can possibly be in. He was like, "Yeah, absolutely." Texted Ahir Shah, who that year won the Edinburgh Comedy Award: "Would you play Christian Bale?" You just have to sit there and keep delivering the line, "You still haven't given up on me," and then channel some of that Christian Bale rage at some point as I keep getting it wrong.
They all said yes! We had the most fun on stage. It lasted an hour, 80 people crammed in a basement. Everyone in the audience was desperate to be there for that show, whatever it was. It gave us the license to play.
We've done three more since then. The one in London, I had a cast of 20 people! Phil Wang played Liam Neeson, Chloe Radcliffe played Katie Holmes, Marise Lane-Robertson as the sound operator... This is wild: we had Ritu Arya, who is a Hollywood actor—she's in big things—she came along to play the first assistant director!
She said about 10 lines. I briefed her: "It's an improv game, I'm giving everyone their entrance point." Camille Ucan played Michael Caine's wife, Shakira Caine, who came on and is just so deeply in love with Michael, thinks he's brilliant at everything. Acaster played the Bat-rangler, who just is a big fan of Michael so was just there to have a little watch.
Ollie Horn: Has Michael Caine heard about this?
Stuart Laws: No. There are legit ways I could... There's a star of the Christopher Nolan film that is a fan of it and has shown the video to Matt Damon. Matt Damon has watched me go, "Nev-ah!"
We're doing two more this Fringe. I paid money to have Mr. Blobby turn up. The real Mr. Blobby. Because when Batman Begins was being filmed in late 2004, the music video for Is This the Way to Amarillo (the Peter Kay version) was being filmed, which Blobby is in.
I thought to myself, I could get Blobby. I filmed him for a TV thing a couple of years ago. It cost me £1,800.
I texted James beforehand, because I was paying everyone small amounts: "Blobby's going to cost this much money, how do you feel about that considering I'm paying everyone 50 quid?" And he was like, "Well, firstly, definitely hire Blobby. Secondly, don't pay me."
So the joke was that he's only on stage for a minute! Right at the end, he storms on. I managed to not tell three-quarters of the cast that Blobby was going to be there. Apart from when Phil Wang arrived and walked straight into Blobby's changing room and went, "Oh, I guess I'm not supposed to know that," and then walked straight back out!
The idea was he bursts through, knocks over the catering table that someone had been setting up for an hour... And also, up close you can hear his real voice before it goes through the voice changer! You just hear a man just going, "Blob? Blobby?" And then you hear him just mutter—I don't know whether in his lore he's allowed to do this—he just went, "Where am I?"
Ollie Horn: This is something where I owe it to what I want this podcast to be to ask you these very specific production questions. So, how does Blobby work then? You have to license the character and the man?
Stuart Laws: Yes, so you're paying the fee for the person to perform and then to license to be able to use their image.
Ollie Horn: And how does it work in terms of that voice changer? They bring their own headset mic, then plug in a box?
Stuart Laws: Yeah, so my sound recordist then takes a split from that. You get a feed for that, but it's also running through the PA for everyone. But if you're close enough, you can hear normal Blobby.
He just storms in, he falls over everything, he's so good at it. In that moment, the plan was that that would be the end of the show—Christian Bale screaming at the DOP, and then Blobby storms on, it's all chaos. But it was only in that moment that I realized: Oh no, the end of this show is Blobby sitting in Christian Bale's seat and delivering the feed line, and that being the thing that makes Michael Caine deliver the line right.
So I go, "Get him in!" Put him down on the floor, and then he goes... (Imitating Blobby/Christian Bale) "You still haven't given up on me."
And then I go, "Nev-ah!"
And then Christopher Nolan goes, "Cut, we got it! Right." And then that's the end of the show. But I didn't realize that until literally Blobby fell over the catering table and my brain went, That's what it is.
Ollie Horn: And this was during the show?
Stuart Laws: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ollie Horn: Perfect. I don't think I would realize quite how much of what is happening on stage is being written in the moment. I was having a coffee with a comic yesterday, and the ending to his show is now one of those sort of perfect, nice call-backs that ties the story up. He basically said it was during his last routine where he's like: That's it. That's what I need to say. No amount of thought outside of the room would have ever gotten him there. It was because he's feeling, on day four now, that he's not got an ending he's happy with, and that fight-or-flight feeling of, I've got to make this work.
Stuart Laws: The comedian John Kearns—I don't know if you know him, he's been on Taskmaster, but he won the Comedy Award up here a few years ago. Really fantastic comedian.
Ollie Horn: John Kearns is a recommendation! We add that.
Stuart Laws: Big recommendation. A newer act was asking him one time for advice, and John was just like, "Just be present." And it was just like, that is such a key thing. It doesn't matter how well-written your show is, it doesn't matter how good you are at performing it: if you're not present and you're not there in the room, the audience will always feel a slight disconnect.
Ollie Horn: I'd like to move on to some recommendations. Let me talk about what's good.
Stuart Laws: Kate Hammer, Jennifer Jane.
Ollie Horn: Kate Hammer, excellent recommendation! In fact, she came up last night with Steven, who produces this, and he said, "I always thought she was good, but this year she's really found her stride."
Stuart Laws: You want to know the secret? I'm directing her.
Ollie Horn: Fair enough!
Okay, let's do a pause on the recommendations then. I did want to talk to you about directing. I thought we'd run out of time, but maybe this is actually quite interesting. A lot of people don't realize that some shows have what's called a director, even a solo stand-up show. You might think, "Well, they're just stood in the same place, so what do you need directing for?"
I think a lot of people firstly don't know what a director is. I also think a lot of newer acts don't really understand what the role of a director is. How should you even pick a director? What do they do? Why might you need one, or why shouldn't you use one?
Stuart Laws: Yeah, there's definitely people that I'm like, "Don't. You don't need to use one." You need to keep... There's some people that you're like, "You keep going on the path you're going on, and in a couple of years' time, you're going to... I don't think you need to be forced by someone else in a different direction. Where you're going is great."
And also, there's people that are so desperate to achieve stuff right away. I agree, obviously it's difficult—we've all got to pay bills, we all want to be stars—but sometimes it's like, it's better if you treat this show as like the next stepping stone sort of thing. Whereas some people it's like: This is your big shot. This is the story, you're in the right zone, you just need someone to help bring it together.
So I think structure, performance, and jokes are like the main things. Directing a comedy special is obviously very different to directing the live show. There's times where I've directed the live show and the special. With Sindhu Vee—incredible stand-up comedian...
Ollie Horn: That's another recommendation, although not at the Fringe this year.
Stuart Laws: Not at the Fringe this year, about to go on tour. But I met up with her a lot to talk about the show and the structure of it. And I was like, "I think that routine should be at the start, because I think that is like the routine that sets you up as a person, and then takes you on the journey that ends up here." So like, this was a show she had toured for a couple of years in that way, and then for the special, I was like, "I think it's better this way," and we worked on it like that.
So there's all different variants. With Kate Hammer...
Ollie Horn: But live show directing, what is it? If you're a new act thinking of writing your first hour...
Stuart Laws: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, with Kate Hammer, directing her... Like she was in last year I did a stand-up/play about a puffin murder mystery.
Ollie Horn: I completely forgot she was in that!
Stuart Laws: And she played four puffins!
Ollie Horn: I completely forgot about this, okay.
Stuart Laws: This is how insane this man is, that we've not even... I forgot about the four-puffin thing, because we got sidetracked by Blobby, right?
But yeah, she auditioned for that, and when I knew that she might be interested in doing it, I was just like: I already knew that she would be perfect for it. I was just hoping that she wasn't just a bad actor! And then the tape was great, so I was like, "She's in."
And then we were doing that for all of last year, and then when she was like, "I'd like you to direct my debut," I was like, "Well, perfect," because she is on the same comedy wavelength as me.
She's someone who's so funny and live and present, it's like: How do you make sure you enhance that without losing... without being like, 'And now you must stand HERE to perform this bit'?" I don't think that's right for her.
Whereas Jennifer Jane, the other person I'm directing, is a storytelling comedian. Jennifer Jane has got a show about how her ex was electrocuted by a dead bear.
Ollie Horn: Great title.
Stuart Laws: It's a real story. She lives in Montana. He was electrocuted in the wilderness, and then she was like, she was his carer and sort of, you know, his hand was amputated. It's a fascinating story, but that is very storytelling. So she's very good at the writing and the structure side, so I'm just there to be like: How do we get this performance engaging in a way that elevates it beyond hearing someone just tell an interesting story?
Ollie Horn: And is that also gag writing, then?
Stuart Laws: So there was a bit of gag writing. I actually was in Montana, because I work in the US as well, to do like... I went there to do some headlining shows at the club in Bozeman, Montana. And whilst there, worked with her on the show and we'd like go through it, and I'd be like, "Right, we need a joke in there." Then I'd pitch like three or four, and then a week later I'd look at the script and be like, "Well, none of them got in!" But she'd had her own version. And that's a nice moment when you're like, "I got my joke in."
Ollie Horn: I love that feeling.
Awesome. Let me do shows that you haven't seen, but you're excited about.
Stuart Laws: Oh, Li Jin Hao!
Ollie Horn: Great!
Stuart Laws: Fantastic comedian. I directed his special, which is out on YouTube, but he's such a... I worked with him a bit on that show, like a couple of sessions, but he's off. He's like in a new Judd Apatow film, he's like, absolute star, his rise is rising.
Bella Hull, obviously.
Ollie Horn: Bella Hull, good luck getting a ticket.
Stuart Laws: Yeah, good luck getting a ticket. Sam Eley—do you know Sam Eley? He's doing a character called Basil Crumwick. And I hosted like a mixed-bill show the other night at Monkey Barrel and he was on. He wears a massive papier-mâché head with massive bulging eyes, and puts the mic up to the hole where his mouth is, and does this Northern sort of character. He has a bit, and I loved it, where it's like: "Why have we decided that it's worse..."—and I apologize for the language—"...why is it worse to fuck a pig than kill it?"
And I'm at the back of the room like, I'm losing my mind at it! And he's like, "If I was a pig, I'd much rather get fucked."
Ollie Horn: That's great. Okay, well, you've heard his best joke then.
Awesome. And who are you not looking forward to? Who shouldn't be at this festival?
Stuart Laws: Ian Smith.
Ollie Horn: Yes! Nasty piece of work.
Stuart Laws: Nasty piece of work, and I don't mean the ex-Rhodesian leader. You immediately looking like, "The guy who..." The warlord!
Ollie Horn: Ian Smith's doing a show this year, is he?
Stuart Laws: He's doing a work-in-progress. Ian Smith is a Northern comedian. I've directed him many years in a row and he's been nominated for the Comedy Award, but he's an awful person.
Ollie Horn: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart Laws: Yeah, he's trying to take over multiple small African countries.
Ollie Horn: Great. Okay. Anyone you're not looking forward to?
Ollie Horn: Oh...
Stuart Laws: This is a problem, this is being recorded. If this wasn't being recorded, I would drop...
Ollie Horn: All right, we've got literally 60 seconds left of the record. Any questions from the audience? Anything that you've seen that you think we should know about?
Audience Member: This is our first show.
Ollie Horn: This is your first show! What a way to start. How many days are you in town for?
Audience Member: A week. We just flew up from Southampton.
Ollie Horn: Oh, well, firstly, welcome. Secondly, you've got some great recommendations here. Definitely watch Kate Hammer. Excellent.
May I recommend the show Let's Listen to Some of Lou Bega's Other Songs Together for an Hour? I'm the first person in the UK to discover that Lou Bega has other songs. And so it's my duty to play them to everybody and give my expert commentary. I Got a Girl, Scatman & Hatman, Sweet Like Cola, Sweet Like Cola (Radio Edit)... I play them all. Lyric sheets provided. That's at 10:30 PM on Wednesday.
Stuart Laws: Is that every day?
Ollie Horn: Wednesday... so I'm only doing Wednesday evenings.
Stuart Laws: You think the show can only sustain Wednesday evenings?
Ollie Horn: It's all I was given! No, well, I'll tell the truth. I thought this would just be a really fun, like, really stupid side project. And I don't want anyone to come to the show—a bit like your Michael Caine thing—I don't want anyone to come that doesn't completely get it. So I was as esoteric as I could be. I put it in the Music section of the program. Didn't attach my name to it at all.
And then I got a call from Julian, who does my PR, going, "I can't work with you because you're not telling anyone about the show. Put your name on it at least!"
So then I kind of backtracked a bit, and so now my name's on the blurb and we've taken it out of the Music section so people can find it. But I just want everyone in the room to know exactly what's going on, which is I am... Phil Ellis said to me, "Really funny title, by the way, for your show," thinking it was a stand-up show. I was like, "No, it's not. It's me playing Lou Bega's other songs."
Stuart Laws: That's a recommendation!
Ollie Horn: Oh, Phil Ellis! Go watch Phil Ellis. If you want some just proper, funny, gag-heavy stand-up with a very funny man. Yeah, let's add Phil Ellis to the list of recommendations today.
Awesome. Lou Bega, however, we will be downsizing the venue. In five years' time, I'll be booking a phone box and I'll be doing it one-on-one.