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 Colin and Fergus Emporium Of Mirth’s accidental discovery of the year happened in June 2004. Arriving far too early for Simon Munnery, I accidentally walked into one of the funniest Edinburgh previews I’d seen. Like a bloodhound I acted Immediately and, barely even knowing their names, I badgered them for an interview. They immediately looked at each other in surprise, clearly not yet used to the attention. Kindly, they agreed and now, over a month later, I go to their penultimate preview to grill them for information. Despite the fact they’re still a little green around the ears (I later find out Fergus has never even visited Edinburgh before) and at times, innocently asked me questions on the circuit, Colin and Fergus seem more... sorted, than most newcomers. They are, quite rightly, confident in their material and will almost certainly become a force to be reckoned with. But before any of that can happen, they have to face what is to be their first ever interview… with us. Yes, that’s right, look impressed. Where we discover that Fergus has been run over three times in his short life, and that glittery cowboy shirts aren’t good as stagewear… To ease them in, and because we don’t want their first effort to lose anything, let’s let them speak for themselves… Obvious question out of the way: how did you two end up working together? Colin: Er, well we studied together in Manchester, acting that’s where we met wasn’t it, darling. Fergus: that’s right C: and, yeah so we spent three years together there and er… F: and we lived together for two years C: (finishing Fergus’ sentence) …two years F: and then we went to Africa C: went to where? F: we went to Africa… on a trip with the Drama school and started doing comedy there C: in Africa… so that’s where we came up with it How did that work? C: well we just had to come up with something for this play we were in you see so we came up with comedy characters who were basically white men in Africa who stuck out like sore thumbs like we did! F: and we did it in Manchester C: yeah So would you prefer to go into straight acting or is comedy your first love? C: well, comedy, yeah, yeah that’s the thing… we did spend a couple of years doing straight acting didn’t we… but it didn’t quite pan out. You’ve both had quite varied solo roles as well, how did you get into that? F: well what happened was we left Drama school planning to be actors.. I got an agent in London, moved down to London. Col stayed up north ‘cause he had an agent up north and we were working, as actors so auditioning to be actors I did the RSC for like, however long, seven months or whatever. Col did… C: …a lot of training videos F: training videos… C: for a lot of companies… which was good and then we er basically ended up doing the thing we did in Africa… cause when we started doing the comedy stuff I guess it was just a bit of fun at Drama school Are you holding back any surprises for the Edinburgh show or is it all out there now? C: ooh... Have you got any surprises that you were gonna do? F: Do you want to know the surprises? C: that wouldn’t really make it a surprise, would it? Well no C: no, no… I think F: Huge surprises… like massive ones! Like getting run over? C & F... yeah! Maybe bring a massive car on stage!? C&F: yeah! Another obvious question: where do you get the ideas for your characters? F: we just nick them off other comics generally. C: Watch telly and think “that’s good, we’ll do that!”. No, a lot of it’s from drama school actually, piss take of people from Drama school that we’ve met. F: that’s probably our biggest thing, you know, Theatre Group, which you saw, that’s sort of based on our experiences there. It does seem frighteningly real… C: Yes! Have you done it yourself? No, but I’ve seen theatre groups like that… and been quite scared! C: yeah, so that’s based on that isn’t it really… the other things really… I dunno, we get inspired by music and make dances up to music and make a story up out of the dance! We just really improvise most of it but something inspires us and then we just kind of make it up from that. Do your characters have their own lives? So you know exactly what’s happened to them before? F: I don’t think we’re that... clever. It really is like I don’t think it’s that sophisticated. Quite often it’s just like a voice. C: Yeah F: An effect, a voice and a funny face and then we just… C: …then as you build on it there is back-story but we make it up as we go along. F: I think theatre group are quite complex C:They are quite complex F: But the rest… Do you know them far too well? C:…. yeah! We go out at night dressed as them. really? That’s quite worrying! C: No! The others are really just... Yeah, funny voices! Do you have any plans for TV or anything like that beyond Edinburgh? C: Yeah, we’ve written three series now, haven’t we? F: No Colin: No, no, we’ve got lots of things that we want to sketch wise and bigger things… F: We’re writing a sitcom based in Victorian Britain. C: that’s exciting, he’s a detective, Sherlock Holmes type thing.. And yeah, this, we hope to get on TV in whatever form it ends up in. Because you know, we’ve got a couple of hours of stuff already. So what are your immediate plans post Edinburgh? F: Probably go home… have a bath.. have an early night probably and, I dunno, it’ll be good to see what happens.. C: See what happens from Edinburgh F: we don’t know do we, cause we’ve never been C: Just as Much work as we can get afterwards and then whatever we can do TV wise and so on… You’ve been involved in quite a few other sketch groups around London, do you find that you thrive better as a team just the two of you or do you like to try out different things? C: Well it’s two very different things really, I suppose the Double act has always been the core thing what we do, but the other things kind of give you the chance to do something completely different. They’re both good in different ways. F: we’ll always be together C: We’ll always be together Bless! C&F laugh Where do you take most of your inspiration from? C: Ooh crikey! F: From each other C: …each other Aaw C: As in comedians and so on? ..as in anything C: Anything that inspires us… F: a baby crying. C laughs: what, a baby crying!? No. F: When a newborn baby’s born C: The miracle of life. F: a bright blue sky… Colin and Me laugh Colin: He’s getting a bit faceacious isn’t he? …so who are your heroes? C: All of them really, all the good ones, the ones who are actually funny. F: We like… the goons C: …and all that don’t we, Monty Python… we like them F: Chris Morris C: Yes, Chris Morris, very much so… Bill Hicks and Steve Coogan F: ..and er… C: Peter Sellers…. And all the usual people Rowan Atkinson all of them, yeah. Me, Harking back to Chris Morris, would you head into a darker direction? C: Probably not actually F: I don’t think we would intentionally… But we are controversial ‘cause two people walked out the other night because of our Jesus sketch. C: Apparently…they were offended by it F: They were offended by our Jesus sketch… but I don think we’d try and intentionally be dark. Did they have a strop? C: Not really no, they just kind of stared at us for about ten minutes and then… walked out F: Well we were on stage. C: Yeah, but do you know what I mean!? They were staring at us…without smiling F: Apparently they made a complaint or something and said the reason was, was because of our Jesus sketch. C: Watch it again tonight and tell us if it’s offensive. I imagine Morrissey would be quite offended… he can get quite high and mighty C: That’s not in it anymore… and I know you love it. F: Both of the things you’ve mentioned, the things you liked best we scrapped! Damn! I’ll have to go and re-write it C: They just didn’t end up fitting in the show really, we will end up doing both of those things in the future but it just didn’t really, we couldn’t make it work. I feel special now C: yeah? Yeah, I’ve seen something everyone else is missing out on! C: No-one else has seen, yeah! You could start a campaign to get it back, really hype it up before it even happens! (to Fergus) then you won’t have to get run over! F: I’m not planning to get run over, I’m, just saying it’s inevitable! So, what is the one piece of advice you would have liked to have been given or would like to give? F: Don’t ask us! C: Cause we don’t know! F: I dunno… read!? C: Don’t start smoking, cause I’ve just given up and it’s horrible. Are you going to take inspiration from your mood swings? C: Maybe, but it’s certainly making me more intense on stage So, other than yourselves, who do you think we should look out for? C: Who do you like best Fergus? F: John Roy C:Yes, John Roy is very good F: …Laurie Lewin C:...These are the other people in our gang.. F: I like, not look out for, but I’ve seen Simon Munnery’s show now twice and it’s brilliant. C: You saw that didn’t you? It’s very good… really nice writing. Yeah, he always leaves you with that kind of “ooh!” feeling… like “what have I just seen?” C&F laugh F: Ooh, who else is cool…. We don’t see that much at the moment C: We don’t get the chance. F: Dutch Elm are quite good C: Yeah, I like Dutch Elm F: I quite like the consultants as well in terms of sketch stuff. Normally we ask about heckles, but do you guys even get heckles? F: yeah, sometimes…. Smug… C: Fergus got called smug F: No, that was in the middle of the Jesus sketch. But I wasn’t being smug…. I didn’t think.. and he went “Smmmmug!” C: “Smug” have you seen the bit where I do like charades and he translates what I’m saying and it’s all “god is…” and whatever and he went “god is…” and this guy went “Smug!” so I don’t know if he meant God is smug or Fergus. But he came back to watch us again and he was quieter. Perhaps he likes Smugness? C: yeah perhaps he was saying “Smug… well done” I like it! Fergus giggles F: …Then there was the crack-head woman in Crouch End. C:[looks scared] Yeah F: crack head prostitute who just sang back each of our songs to us and told Colin he was… Cl: “Sexy”…and then she chased me onto the dressing room C: She was like “you’re beauuuutiful” like this [does actions of a madwoman] Me: in crouch end!? Colin: Yes, downstairs at the kings head In there, there’s nowhere to escape to! C: No, exactly, I had to tell her to leave I had to say “now you’re going to have to get out of the dressing room” I had to be very authoritative. At least you’ve got that glass window so she couldn’t try and lock you in there without being seen. C: That’s true. I could have got out… but she was quite frightening. It’s not really heckling, cause she loved it didn’t she [looks to Fergus who looks confused] she loved the show! F: yeah, but I don’t think she knew what was going on! Interviewed by Lauren - Summer 2004 RSS  Printable version	Visit our Siamese Twin Sister Site!