Naz Osmanoglu

Naz Osmanoglu: Edinburgh Fringe 2016 interview

As a member of celebrated sketch group WitTank and a great solo act in his own right, Naz Osmanoglu is no stranger to the Edinburgh Fringe. This year he's one of several veterans turning to the pay-what-you-want model that lets audiences pay £5 to guarantee a seat or turn up hoping there's space and donate at the end.

I talk to: Naz Osmanoglu

Most recently seen in BBC Three's sitcom Flat TV alongside Tom Rosenthal, Naz Osmanoglu is returning to the Edinburgh Fringe with his brand new show Exposure.

Naz Osmanoglu Q&A - Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Interview with Naz Osmanoglu.

Five fast Fringe questions with...Naz osmanoglu

With over 3000 shows at the world's biggest arts festival, here at The Reviews Hub, we want to make the job of choosing your Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows that little bit easier. So here's Naz Osmanoglu answering our annual Five Fast Fringe Questions.

Comedy connections

With a plethora of offerings at every Fringe, it's inevitable that some performing paths start to cross. Here's a closer look at who's teaming up with whom.

Preview: Flat TV, BBC Three

Since BBC Three went online it has had identity problems. A show such as Cuckoo might be good but it doesn't seem to chime with the bold new future of online viewing. On the other hand Flat TV, which originated on the web, feels exactly like the programme you might expect an online channel aimed at a young audience to make. In both a good way and a bad way.

Radio Times review

Nothing wrong with an old-fashioned sitcom, and set-ups don't come much comfier than a shop staffed by eccentrics. Bull is the surname of both lead characters: siblings, played by Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman, who sell antiques. He's extravagant and creosote-brown, like a certain wheeler-dealing TV presenter, while she chain-smokes and only pays attention when necessary. Their young assistants are stupid (Naz Osmanoglu) and nervous (Claudia Jessie).

What's not so traditional is the chaotic script, which aims for quirky but more often hits baffling. Matt Lucas lifts this opener with a guest turn as a neighbouring shopkeeper who's obsessed with bossa nova.

... the other team to watch are the hugely engaging Tom Rosenthal and Naz Osmanoglu. Shame about the title -- Flat TV -- which would only work if people actually used the phrase 'Flat TV', rather than 'Flat Screen TV'. But that quibble apart, this series has legs. The situation may be hackneyed -- hopeless male flatmates yearning to get off with the much sassier girls in the flat next door -- but it works because the chemistry is great, the lines are funny and the set-up quirkily digressive and post-modern.

The premise is that the boys inhabit a universe where their real lives collide with a TV fantasy world on their in-house channel Flat TV. So, when they're trying to decide which note to pin on the girls' door, their respective efforts are judged by an X-Factor-style panel (with Rosenthal doing a bravura Simon Cowell). It ended disastrously (in a good way) with the boys smashing to smithereens a live lobster in front of the deeply unimpressed girls (one of them an ardent vegetarian who can't eat anything 'with a face'), as part of a misguided attempt to demonstrate a theory one of them read on the internet that lobsters are immortal.

WitTank interview

Mark Cooper-Jones, Naz Osmanoglu and Kieran Boyd are WitTank.