Consignia
Published: Tuesday 13th December 2022
One random comedian, eight random questions; it's the ultimate test of funny person and fate. This week we welcome a collective who are often to be found bewildering audiences in the wee small hours of big comedy festivals, but are getting festive in London this weekend, with some similarly mainstream-swerving friends.
"So, the Museum of Comedy is putting on four unique shows for Christmas on the 16th and 17th December," says either Nathan or Phil from Consignia. Possibly both. "We were very pleased to be asked to be one of those shows, alongside other great comedians Sean Morley, Jim John Harkness and Sam Nicoresti. Our show is called Consignia: In Tents, and ostensibly it's a show about three people who go camping in the woods, but you could also say it's about a lot more than that."
It's about a lot more than that.
"You could say it's about the fragmented nature of society and how the lines are blurred between what is real and what is fake, what is truth and what is lies, and how we're asked to accept ever shifting contradictory narratives and how we're constantly, permanently unsettled living in this strange and confusing time. You could say that, but you'd sound like a pretentious wanker.
"As it's Christmas, we've tapped into the tradition of the Christmas horror on the BBC in the '70s. There are also shades of folk horror and the work of the director of Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead, Rick Stein."
Such a versatile auteur. And how would they say 2022 went, generally?
"Overall, 2022 was a fun year for us. In August, we did probably our best ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was called Consignia Present: The Flatterers. We wanted to make a gross-out show about neoliberalism to test the limits of audience taste, and think we achieved that, as we had two confirmed cases of audience members being physically sick during the show... and that's just when we walked out on stage!
"No, in all seriousness some people were sick whilst watching our show, but a lot of other people said nice things about it.
"We were really proud of that show, but we have an unwritten rule that we make a show and then instantly bin it. Hence this show at the Museum of Comedy is brand new. Creatively that's probably a good approach to have. Commercially it's terrible."
Who knew a name like that would be financially challenged? And in 2023 they're taking a new show to the Leicester Comedy Festival, which could be a departure: "at the moment the ambition is to make it an actual musical."
The West End awaits. But now, Consignia, here's your Random 8:
Who was your childhood hero, real or fictional?
Phil: Real: Pat Sharp. Fictional: Wolf from Gladiators. Pat seemed an expert at organised chaos. The Twins seemed a right laugh too. Wolf was really entertaining being this grumpy hard man.
Nathan: For my seventh birthday, my family arranged for local radio DJ Steve Ladner to pick me up and drive me around the block in an Invicta FM roadrunner. I had a framed picture of our meeting on my wall for ages, had his autograph and said I wanted to legally change my name to Steve. But probably Alan Shearer.
Your most embarrassing moment?
Nathan: We worked as security guards at the National Gallery in London. And we were asked to be their representative to transfer James McNeill Whistler's 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 also known as Whistler's Mother to the Grierson Art Gallery in Los Angeles, as the painting had been purchased by philanthropist General Newton for $50 million.
Anyway, when we get the painting over there we accidentally sneezed on Whistler's Mother and damaged the painting with an ink-stained tissue and lacquer thinner whilst trying to clean it!
That night, determined to save our friend David's career, we snuck back into the gallery, incapacitated the security guard with laxatives and replaced the defaced Whistler's Mother with a reprinted poster of it coated in egg whites and nail polish to resemble the real one, which successfully fools everyone at the ceremony the next day. We gave a speech about the painting, expressing an improvised and sentimental opinion about it that won the crowd's approval.
But then our friend David's daughter, Jenifer, was in a motorcycle accident. So we rushed to the hospital and when we were wandering around the hospital, we got mistaken for a surgeon and we were forced into a surgery room, where a policeman (who'd we had previous altercations with) had been shot, we saved his life by inadvertently removing the bullet from his body.
David then begs us, unaware of our true identity, to wake Jennifer up from her unconscious state - we succeeded, amazingly, after an accident with a defibrillator sent us flying through the air and we landed on her.
David let us stay for another week in LA. But it was pretty embarrassing, looking back on it.
What should be Britain's next national anthem, and why?
Phil: The Asda theme tune, because it's a banger.
Nathan: *bangs his arse in a That's Asda Price way*
Phil: Careful now.
Nathan: Yeah that or Chumbawamba.
What's the strangest thing in your wardrobe?
Nathan: A giant, sentient M&M who tells us when Scott's home early.
Phil: You'll do anything to plug our podcast Modernist Cat Wee Wee, won't you?
Nathan: It's not what it looks like.
Phil: Now the biting makes sense.
Nathan: You were going to eat him without me weren't you? [*silence*]. Subscribe now if you like a frustratingly edited, sporadically uploaded podcast experience.
Your favourite shop, ever?
Phil: I love bookshops, I spend too much on books I never read. It's a bad addiction. Also Tandy.
Nathan: I hate shopping as an activity.
Who's the most interesting person you've ever met?
Nathan: I met David Frost once and he said I looked like Jeremy Clarkson.
Phil: When I worked in retail I served a fair amount of C-list and below celebs. A special mention has to go for Keith Chegwin, who I served a meal deal to and seemed a nice, normal bloke who was on good terms with all the staff. I also met Eyal Berkovic on a train sitting with his family in standard class in the mid '90s. Again, lovely man. I wrote a thank you letter to him.
Nathan: I once saw Paul Daniels queuing for the log flume at Legoland.
How do you feel about cats (the animal, not the musical)?
Nathan: Yeah, they're great. Great little things. Love them. Here are mine...
What's your favourite building?
Phil: Cemex Works, Rugby. It's a brutalist masterpiece on a sheer scale that is worth a look at.
Nathan: Phil and I first bonded over modernist buildings, we did a brutalist tour of London. Then we went on a bus, and Phil put on a policeman's hat he bought from a tourist shop, and pretended to drive the bus. I thought 'here is a true artistic genius', the rest is history.
Phil: Biggest mistake I ever made.
Nathan: Shout-out to Anglia Square in Norwich, where I live. Despite the city having two Cathedrals and a shit load of old buildings, Anglia Square is the best. They've been trying to knock it down for years but it always survives. If the bulldozers roll in I may have to chain myself to the window.
Consignia are playing the Leicester Comedy Festival in February 2023: comedy-festival.co.uk
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