Homepage News Reviews - Acts - Shows - Screen - Radio - Books - Clubs Interviews Awards 2006 Edinburgh 2005 - Reviews - Blog - Previews Features Archive Awards 2005 Edinburgh 2004: - Previews - Shows - Diary Guestbook Forum © Emporium Of Mirth 2004 Editor: Lauren Murphy Reporters: Fiona Wilkie Natalie Joanne	Emporium of Mirth Simon Munnery The creator of some of the most innovative comedy characters of recent memory is back in the country, and he’s coming back with not one, but two quiet bangs. Not satisfied with one Edinburgh Show, Munnery is undertaking the not unreasonable task of putting on TWO shows at this year’s fringe. Lauren caught up with him while he was developing “The Buckethead Phenomenon Anon And On” for a chat about life, the universe and Edinburgh… Buckethead Phenomenon Anon And On is a strange and wonderful journey through the human condition via four very different bucket wearing folk (though one is a puppet). But before I could even think of probing him about it, there were a few things playing on my mind. Like his compadre Stewart Lee and his companion for the evening Kevin Eldon, Simon is known for not wanting to take the ‘usual’ path and, with the aforementioned Eldon and Lee, helped create Cluub Zarathustra, a shining monolith of a concept, taking comedy away from the confines of Jongleursesque comedy clubs. So, before I started, I had to check his comedy barometer, if he still feels as disenfranchised with the ‘normal’ circuit? “I think it’s a good thing to start a club and get out and do something and do what you want. The thing about the circuit was, you do a gig and there’s a lot of pressure to you know, deliver laughs and there’s a such a rhythm of “badadum badadaum” that clubs get into and if you don’t conform to that then you have a hard time… I don’t know if I felt disenfranchised, I was still doing the circuit, I just wanted to do something else. I thought, you know, there are little stages, what else can be done? Just, other things.” It’s clear to me that, though Simon has a fondness for the regular circuit, he would still far more rather be doing things his way, setting his own rules and standards… but more of that later, I need cold, hard, facts… for there has been a vicious and rather exciting rumour doing the rounds recently that Cluub Zarathustra is threatening a comeback and I use this as a foot-in to find out if our sources are reliable. This elicits a positive, if slightly uncertain response from Simon. “Stewart Lee sent an e-mail round saying “Do you want to do it again?” I went “Yeah!” and that’s all I’ve heard!” So, the seeds have been sown, it seems that like the rest of us, even Simon has to wait and see if they grow “I don’t know, might happen!” Already, I’m sensing that, though Simon has a definite idea of what he wants to do, he prefers not to be tied down to anything and see what develops, and that’s exactly what makes his creations so enjoyable. That, and a generous dash of modern philosophy. “It’s the sort of stuff I come up with, just the sort of things that I… like. And then I put them in. Often I end up with like a line or something and I have to look for somewhere for it to go. Like in the play there’s some bits in there that are sort of old and I thought “well, that will go in there” it’s sort of like a collage and you hope it sort of melds through performance. You take all the bad bits out and hopefully it will become a thing all of its own. Yeah, I like a nice… sentence!” I delve a little deeper now, the style of Simon’s act certainly demonstrates a good knowledge of Philosophy and I am surprised to learn that his his knowledge of the area is purely recreational. I ask if this means he would like to be thought of in years to come as a popular philosopher. Despite his answer drawing a negative, the dreamy expression this question gleans implies that, though he’s not considered this before, the answer is a resounding yes, though its clear he’s far to humble to admit it, maybe even to himself. And so, to the future. I was pretty sure Alan Parker: Urban Warrior should be in an institution by now, probably languishing somewhere in the Home Counties with the League Against Tedium having an argument about the benefits of Echinacea… but that could just be my overactive imagination. “No! I dread to think what’s happened to him! I’m sure I’ll get something new for him at some point, not this year, maybe next year.” So, they could return? “I’ll probably do them again at some point, both of them, the League and Alan Parker. I won’t be doing double act again I don’t suppose.” Since its cancellation before broadcast [snips rant about Jane Root], there has always been a question mark hanging over whether Attention Scum will ever see so much as a repeat airing, let alone its release, despite there clearly being a demand. Luckily, Simon’s slightly maverick manner means he has a plan… “I don’t think Attention Scum will ever be released… but in 1999 when I did the League, I had a feed from the sword with the camera that did a feed to the screen with the audience and it was recorded. Not every night, only on bad nights! I’ve got the best one of those on a mini dvd. But it’s a lot of effort making things! "I would [release it]. It’s not up to me though, I imagine the BBC owns it. I’ve started selling cds and that on the net. Stuart Leich owns a website (www.leagueagainsttedium.co.uk) and he sends people onto me if they want to buy Alan Parker: Urban Warrior the band which had Stewart [Lee] as guitarist, Al Murray on drums… happy days. So there’s that and I’ve got loads of other stuff as well… "I’ve thought about a sort of library whereby you pay a little bit to join and there’s a certain number of items go out and you send them onto each other rather than coming back to a central thing. And every six months or so I’ll add something else to it. You’d be a life-member for like five quid or something and just keep doing it. I made videos of various things but then they’re all sitting at my mum’s house and I haven’t really gotten round to doing it! I’ll probably try and get someone else to do it… so I should get some stuff out.” Maverick, or just resourceful? It’s quite clear from this idea that Simon cares just as much about the people who want to watch and listen to his projects as he does about the projects themselves, a point he revisits when I later ask him our traditional quick fire questions, and discover that one of his tips for any precocious young acts wanting to try their hand at stand up being “Rejoice that anyone comes to see you – one is too many!” This year, Simon is taking two projects with him to the fringe and once again, the concepts are far from what we would call the normal, his political agendas too wide to pinpoint specific targets. There will be no Al Quaeda baiting or Blair bashing in his shows, the only target here is society (or the Daily Mail). The first of his shows for this years Fringe, a play entitled not so simply “The Buckethead Phenomenon Anon And On” is the best example of this. The play opens with Simon playing a Newspaper Seller telling of the recent takeover by the Bucketheads, a new movement of people so ashamed of the world that they have taken to wearing buckets upon their bonces to prevent from witnessing anything. “It’s based on a play I did in Edinburgh last year called Buckethead: Way of the Bucket which was the same sort of thing. It was a series of buckets being interviewed, and two other actors interviewing the buckets and there was a video link to outside. And there was a sort of gay Nazi which was me came on intimidating them, then there was a revolution, where we would cut to the CCTV footage of what was going on outside, which was actually outside at the same time sort of two days ago and every so often a buckethead would walk past. And if I flipped to it at the right time you’d see it. And the gay Nazi would come on and flip to the footage and a crowd of bucketheads would go past to start the revolution… unfortunately it was impossible ever to time that so it was at the right point. Either I’d run out of things to say before it happened or it would be happening before I’d run out of things to say. "So I’ve put a new front end on and a new back end on and a couple of other bits but it still needs something else... I’ll get there. It’ll be as good as it gets by Edinburgh, I’ll do it for a month, see what happens and hopefully never do it again!” The only downside I can see in this concept is the fact that Simon will be forced to wear a bucket over his head for at least 45 minutes of the hour… under stage lights… during the hottest month of the year. Add to that a Hessian coat and various other props and it could be a recipe for heatstroke. “I’ll sweat like a pig, it’s terrible! I might drill holes in it. The costume end - only that Hessian sack thing… that’s not finished but it’s nearly finished. The others should be… the communist should have big bits of card with “Road Closed” on it, because he’s a road closer. And also card carrier! He’s going to have loads of Nike symbols sort of torn out of t-shirts like scouts.” Unfortunately, some of the home-made props and costumes won’t be making it up the A1 in the condition in which they were originally intended, and some are still on the other side of the pacific, the relocation back to Blighty in June is still having consequences it seems “The last time I did it, in the village I had a broomstick with the buckets and two extra bodies made out of paper but I couldn’t bring that over. The hessian coat we posted over and that took two weeks and it arrived all smashed. There are wooden tambourines on it and they were all at the bottom of the box.” The second of Simon’s shows will, thankfully be far less prop-reliant, called Annual General Meeting, the show will probably force Simon to get as close as he ever will to being specific with his politics. “Well it will be fairly loose and improvised. We’ll go through the minutes of previous meetings and go through any thoughts we’ve had about various things. I’ve been thinking about economics a lot lately so there will be some things about that. It will change day by day. I might start with some songs and a drummer, that’s my only new thought. But I might not. So, loose, that’s loose and this [Buckethead Phenomenon Anon and On] will be tight and scripted." Beyond Edinburgh, Simon has plans for more radio work “I’ve got a radio series going out for Radio Four called ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’ it’s a series of four fifteen minutes, that’s going out in February. But telly I don’t know, I should get off my arse and do something! I don’t know.” His off-air plans, however see a return of his nomadic tendencies (fans will remember the plan, which was partly carried out, to take the League around on the back of a van) and encapsulate his almost eccentric ideals. “I’d like something you could carry in one bag - I’d like to perform in a tent, in front of a fire.” I point out the possible health and safety problems associated with having naked flames in enclosed, flammable spaces. “I’ve just happened to read on the Internet, in Wales you an get 100 seater tepee for 6 grand, or you can hire one and with a tepee you can have fires in the middle so you can be warm in the winter. I just like the idea of moving a tepee around. I quite like the circus life idea – you take your venue with you, like a snail. But you know, it’s not practical but I’ll see how it goes. Think in September. Work towards Edinburgh and then think in September. “I’d love to, you know, have a one-man show I can carry in a bag – and a tepee. Not necessarily comedy, it could be a play, you don’t even have to define what it is. That’s the whole thing of having it in a tent I’d also like to transport it by canal barge, that would be my ideal, travel in from out of town, stay a week, next town. Rather than doing gigs of 20 minutes, an hour on stage then back in the car, back on the train. But I’m not complaining… well I am, but I shouldn’t!” The spirit of Cluub Zarathustra is clearly very much alive. And so to the aforementioned traditional Quickfire questions and, in particular to what is possibly the nicest heckler story we’ve ever heard here at Emporium of Mirth: Best heckle? “Don’t die” What was the comeback to that? “Where were you at Calgary?” Is there a story behind that? I married her immediately afterwards… well, a year and a half later. So, I met my wife cause she heckled me. [puts on an Australian accent] “oooh, don’t die!”, as if I had a choice! It was hilarious, it was this really weird gig I was off my box, I’d just done a gig already, I’d done an hour and I’d got a bit pissed and stoned and I thought I’d just breeze through the 15 minutes at this Fringe kind of place in Melbourne and it all fell on me! It went wrong right at the start. I’d only did one joke and it was Alan Parker and then I went “has anyone got any issues?” this one bloke went [another Australian accent] “repetitious comedians” and I went “WHAT!?” and just lost my temper, I’d only done one joke and the whole place just went “oeeeeh” and just nothing worked. I tried to do the League – in the wrong costume. At one point this bloke went, who it turns out is Janet’s cousin, I said “What am I doing wrong, what am I doing wrong?” and this bloke goes [does yet another Australian accent] “you’re too polite mate” and I went “I’m sorry”… and that’s how we met! Comedy heroes? Obviously, Monty Python, Young Ones, Ernie Wise, Jasper Carrott. But people I’ve seen live… Jerry Sadowicz, Arnold Brown, John Hegley, Most people make me laugh quite a lot. Sean Lock is hilarious. What advice would you give somebody who was hoping to move into comedy? Give up! - Then carry on. Clock up the stage hours, rejoice that anyone comes to see you, one is too many! Who should we keep an eye on? Always go and see Hegley, Arnold Brown… it’s not particularly new but I’ve been away for six months. TV? I’ve seen 15 Storeys high but that’s finished now. Brass Eye is brilliant. Interviewed by Lauren, Summer 2004 RSS  Printable version	Visit our Siamese Twin Sister Site!