Crizards go to war at the 2023 Fringe

Musical comedy duo Crizards - Will Rowland and Eddy Hare - are back at the Fringe for a fourth year, and this year's show, This Means War, is all about, well, war. We sat down to attempt to find out more about their new hour.

What inspired you to create a show about the epic battle between crickets and lizards? Are you both cricket and/or lizard enthusiasts?

I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding. The show is a recreation of Eddy's grandfather's experience during the war, not a battle between crickets and lizards. Having said that, we are both fans of lizards (chameleons are fun for example). Crickets are more of a mixed bag, they are quite noisy but Jiminy Cricket has a nice hat.

Are the crizards in your show trained professionals or are they just regular crickets and lizards who stumbled upon their acting careers?

Again, there are no crickets or lizards in the show. If we were to use them in a production then it would follow the usual casting process. So we would look for handsome crickets and lizards on Spotlight and then contact them to see if they'd like to audition.

Will audience members have the chance to participate in the war? Should we come prepared with cricket chirps or lizard impersonations?

Please don't make insect or reptile sounds during the show, this is a tender war story about memory, loss and friendship. We can't have someone in the back row rolling around pretending to be a Komodo dragon.

What advice would you give to someone caught in the middle of a cricket-lizard war?

They are more scared of you than you are of them.

How do crickets and lizards prepare for war?

Obviously we don't know about this because all of our research for the show has been wars between humans. However, our best guess is that the crickets would spend time sharpening their mandibles for combat. The lizards would divide up their duties amongst different species. Chameleons could be spies, geckos to scale walls during sieges, and flying lizards could be air support.

Lastly, if you were to choose a side in the crizards' war, would you be a cricket commander or a lizard general? And what would be your battle cry?

For the final time, the show is not about a battle between crickets and lizards. You must have misread the press release. But if we had to pick then we would be a lizard general and our battle cry would be 'let's fuck up Jiminy and his whole family'.