Beth Granville and Gemma Layton answers 10 Edinburgh Fringe Questions
Beth Granville and Gemma Layton are otherwise known as the characters Flick and Julie. We find out more about their 2015 Fringe show here...
1. Tell us about your career so far. Are you happy with where you're at?
Beth: After the roaring success of my comedy performance of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes in front of a small invited audience of family and friends in my Gran's living room in 1989, I took a few years out to gather material and returned to comedy in 2009. I began with writing and performing some sketches in Cardiff. Since then, some of my acting credits include Gavin & Stacey and Stella, plus BBC Radio Wales sitcom Scot Of The Antarctic. I have contributed comedy material for BBC Wales Radio and the live sketch show Sketchageddon. I have written a short play entitled Foiled, a comedy which was produced by Dirty Protest Theatre Company. The full length version of Foiled is going into development with Difficult Stage Theatre Company. Flick and Julie: Pop Up Penny Pinchers is happening this year - I couldn't be enjoying it more!
Gemma: I was a jobbing actor, doing ok but feeling like I could do more. Someone said I should do stand-up. They were drunk but I chose to believe them anyway. Turns out I was pretty funny and got to the semi-finals in Laughing Horse and Funny Women competitions as my alter-ego Mercedes Benson. Mercedes and I went viral...in a good way, with a song parody I wrote called Shopping in Lidl which, through an almost connected string of events, led to me creating a solo character comedy show. I also worked with sketch group FunBags for four years, making it to the finals of So You Think You're Funny? last year at the Gilded Balloon. Now, with Pop Up Penny Pinchers, I'm having an absolute blast! Can't wait to get going!
2. Describe your show in exactly 23 words.
Beth: Helping you to survive in the modern age on 1970s wages, advice both useful and wonderfully absurd, given through comedy sketches and songs!
Gemma: The only show you need to see at the Fringe this year that has two women in it called Flick and Julie. Yeah.
3. Why are you putting yourself through this famously stressful experience?
Beth: It can't be as stressful as the extra paper rounds we've both had to pick up to pay for it ... Can it?
Gemma: For the money... hang on a minute...
4. Any cunning plans to get more punters in?
Not yet. *
*Casually looks up prices of lassos online.
The possibility for getting your consonants mixed up in that question is too hilarious to contemplate an answer.
5. How much money do you think you'll lose/make this year?
Depending on the generosity of audience members anything between -£3,000 to +£3,000.
6. Gemma: What's your weirdest past Fringe experience?; Beth: What are you most looking forward to about your first Edinburgh Festival?
Gemma: I performed to 5 people in a hall that could seat 100 at 12pm on a Sunday lunch. They were surprisingly raucous (they may have been out all night...) and, at the end, we abandoned taking a bow in favour of hugging them individually. (We felt that pick pocketing would be more lucrative than asking for donations)
Beth: Showing off and doing comedy every day. And the possibility of performing to 5 people with a room capacity of 100 at Sunday lunch.
7. What other shows are you hoping to see?
Adam Hess, Rhys James, Robin Morgan, To Kill A Machine and Owen Jones.
8. If you took over programming a venue, what would you perfect line-up of comedians be?
Reece Sheersmith and Steve Pemberton
All of the Pythons
9. Name the one person you'd rather not bump into during the festival.
We're very clumsy so it's likely we'll bump in to a lot of people whether we want to or not. We'll just going to embrace it. And buy shin pads.
10. Why should audiences pick your show over the 1,700+ other comedy offerings at this year's festival?
Because it's a right laugh. Oooh there are raffle prizes too! Also, please see the answer to 23 words about our show.
'Flick and Julie: Pop-Up Penny Pinchers' is at 3:30pm at Cowgatehead on 10-18, 20-29 August. Listing
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