2011 Edinburgh Fringe

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I'm Seymour Mace and I'm not happy. I realised this at last year's Edinburgh Festival. Problems with my venue, my agent and my comedy not to mention being finally killed off at the end of series six of Ideal all conspired to lead me to the brink of a nervous breakdown and as my work crumbled I looked around for something else to grasp but there seemed to be nothing. This was when I figured out that I wasn't happy and hadn't been happy for quite some time.

I determined to make that discovery the first step on the road back. I'd spent my life making other people laugh but now doubted whether I'd ever made anyone happy so resolved to investigate happiness. Was it achievable or just a pipe dream in a world that is ultimately bleak?

So Happypotamus was to be the culmination of my triumphant travels back to happiness. Unfortunately it wasn't so easy, after an ill thought out move to London and the loss of two agents within the space of a few months I was back in Manchester in April being diagnosed with depression... Oh dear.

It's now July and thanks to some good friends, a bit of counselling and a real hunt for the heart of what makes people happy I'm eventually starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

The show will feature my struggle to get happy whilst discovering the dark side of happiness and why it's harder than we might think to achieve although I'm certain that we can achieve it if we take a few lessons from the younger generation and their seemingly innate ability to generate random acts of stupidity, silliness for the sake of it and hassle free happiness. To this end we'll be exploring how to be an idiot, how to do what you want and how to not give a fig what other people think and we'll definitely be dancing like nobody's watching.

So come along and join me for some vintage Seymour Mace silliness as we drag ourselves kicking and squealing from the jaws of despair back into the arms of idiocy.

Biography

An experienced stand-up and actor, Seymour Mace appeared in the first six series of BBC Three's Ideal alongside Johnny Vegas. Seymour was City Life Comedian of the Year in 2003 and Best Breakthrough Act at the North West Comedy Awards in 2004.

After leaving school at 18, Seymour went to work on the stage crew at Butlins in Skegness. After that he worked on and off throughout his twenties for the Natural Theatre Company, widely regarded as one of the best street theatre companies in the world. He was also lucky enough to achieve his childhood dream of being a clown, working around Japan for a year in the nineties. He fell into stand-up in his early thirties and has been avoiding any real work since. Seymour took his first full show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005 and after a break in 2004 returns for his fifth straight year in 2011 with his new show Happypotamus.

Seymour is earmarked for great things as both a writer and performer and currently resides in Manchester.