End Of The Road festival, BriTANicK - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary
Published: Wednesday 4th September 2024
Today we're closing off (music) festival season with the appropriately-named End Of The Road, who caught the eye of this column due to their inarguably high-quality music and comedy lineups this year.
A high-quality roster of comedians, yes, if not quite as developed as the level of attention, say, Latitude festival lavish on their comedy lineup. To which End Of The Road might reasonably defend their quality-not-quantity approach: headliners include Fern Brady - whose performance suggests ticket-buyers for her current UK tour are in safe hands - plus Stewart Lee and Josie Long (both of whom requested journalists not discuss their sets in coverage of the festival).
End Of The Road have a skill for backing the right rising stars, as well: not many of the audience will have been familiar with Sara Barron and Paddy Young before the weekend, but they're each individual, exciting talents - they'll have both won a legion of new fans at the festival. That just leaves us with a small handful of newcomers, who - to varying extents - proved themselves not yet ready to take on this stage. One other benefit of seeing comedy here: it's September. Most comedians use music festivals for pre-Edinburgh Fringe practice. At this festival, you're getting material at its peak, that's just finished a stretch being honed nightly in the sweaty basements of Scotland's capital.
If all that's not yet sold you on End Of The Road, the music might be well up your street. Basically, if The Guardian have recently given a band a five star review, expect an invitation to the festival to arrive on their doorstep pretty shortly. Highlights included a phenomenal set by Lankum, as well as excellent turns from Jockstrap, Slowdive and Altin Gun. Meanwhile, we heard All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem three times throughout the weekend, and they weren't even playing. (Due, in part, to Thursday night's superior silent disco).
Then there's the matter of vibe, which End Of The Road can confidently claim to have nailed. The location is an absolute beaut - sat amongst the rolling hills and forest pathways of Dorset. Everything is unfailingly relaxed: unless you're showing up to the buzziest of shows on a restricted-capacity stage, nothing ever feels like an actual strain. There's nobody stopping you taking food or drink anywhere on-site. It even beats Glastonbury for a complete lack of corporate branding.
Peacocks roam the walkways (peacocks!). You can get a solid pint of lager for £6.50, or a punishingly strong craft beer pint for £1 more. This was the festival's 18th edition: you can understand how they've built up such a committed fanbase.
Away from the world of music festivals, American sketch duo BriTANicK wrapped up their UK trip with a week of shows at Soho Theatre. And you have to marvel at the intricate cleverness of it all.
At first, they're going to try and kid you into believing that no such trickery will take place. Don't be fooled. You can see their influence on Demi Adejuyigbe's phenomenal 2024 show - which they directed - and which was running in the basement of this venue the same week.
There's a good rule of thumb in live comedy: if, as an audience member, you don't want to risk humiliation during the course of a show, don't even slightly involve yourself at any stage. If you do, comedians may consider you fair game for having to later play a far more substantial role. That rule gets proven extremely correct here. Elsewhere, they joke about classic sketch comedy group dynamics, but their characters and differing comedic roles in the duo could, realistically, do with a little more definition.
Still, they've got the most important thing firmly in place: those comedic ideas. There's just so many of them, they're very high quality, and they all knit together into a very satisfying whole. Sure, it's true that, in the finest comedy, you can't tell when all the structural foundations are being laid down. But the multitude of payoffs here are absolutely worth it. BriTANicK need to be treasured.
Read previous editions of this column (featuring Ivo Graham, Stamptown, Olga Koch and Kiri Pritchard-McLean).
Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter. Festival season has tired him out, but you can wake him up when September ends.
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