Miranda Hart - Such Fun. Sophie Johnson
and, well, if it ain’t broke… Of course, this isn’t entirely true. Performers don’t come just from London to take part, but from all over the world, whether they’re seeking fame or recognition, or simply just to have a go. In 2010, there were an overwhelming 2,453 shows to choose from in the Fringe programme alone, not to mention numerous related festival events: the Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, Edinburgh Book Festival, Edinburgh Internet Festival, Edinburgh Swing Festival, Edinburgh International Television Festival… There were so many offshoot events that the Edinburgh International Film Festival was shifted from August to late June in 2008.
For punters, it’s a fantastic experience – there are shows to cater to every taste and there’s nothing quite like sauntering into a pub and discovering something new and exciting. For residents, well, they’re split: some love that their city becomes the centre of culture; some see it as an invasion. For the comedians, however, it’s all part of the job – where your job involves nocturnal hours, drinking far too much, and leaving financially far worse off than you arrived. But it’s the spirit of the Fringe and most embrace it.
For years, many acts performing at the Festival were battling for the Perrier Comedy Award. The inaugural winners were The Cambridge Footlights in 1981, whose Cellar Tapes show was directed by future Dead Ringers star Jan Ravens and was performed by Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Penny Dwyer and Paul Shearer. Other big names who would win the award included Jeremy Hardy, Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Lee Evans, Jenny Eclair, Dylan Moran, The League of Gentlemen, Al Murray, Rich Hall, Daniel Kitson and Brendon Burns. When Perrier withdrew their sponsorship in 2006, it moved through various deals, rebranding as the if.comedy awards (the if.comeddies), but now seems to have settled on the less fussy Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
Winning or receiving a nomination for the main award is a big deal for comedians and can come as quite a shock. Russell Kane, the 2010 winner of the main award, can remember where he was when he received his nomination by voicemail. ‘I was in a disabled toilet changing into a costume for a play and as I played the message I fell sideways and pulled the distress cord.’
Some feel that the very idea of an award is anti-Fringe. Richard Herring, who at the time of writing has written and performed in 30 Edinburgh shows since 1987, was once asked by a BBC interviewer what his one Edinburgh wish would be. He replied, ‘If I could only have one, I would wish that the Perrier Award would be banished from the Festival in perpetuity. I think it creates an unpleasant atmosphere of competition in something that shouldn’t be a competition and gives lazy TV execs and punters a shortcut way to see what are supposedly the best six acts without having to do the leg work themselves and discover that there are at least forty other shows that are equally deserving of their attention.’
We were taught as children that it’s not about winning – it’s the taking part that counts. Though, in 2008, the awards were accused of wimping out by giving the Spirit of the Fringe to ‘Every comedian on the Fringe for making it happen’. After that year’s ceremony, performer bars were full of talk, comedians threatening to put ‘Spirit of the Fringe winner 2008’ on next year’s posters. I failed to spot any in 2009, but it’s this sort of camaraderie and ethos that embodies the Fringe for so many performers and tempts them back year after year.
When asked about memorable Fringe moments, comedians paint a picture of a mischievous, debauched and frankly bizarre August. Jason Byrne said his favourite moment was when an audience member left his show to go to the toilet and he convinced the rest of the crowd to hide: ‘I got 169 people to leave the venue via the exit door by the stage, and we all hid there while we watched the woman come back from the toilet. She came back and sat down, and we all jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!” The girl nearly died, it was great fun.’
Rhod Gilbert paints a romantic picture, fondly remembering spending the last night of the festival with good friends: ‘Watching dawn break on the city that had been our home for a month, my flatmates and I quietly contemplated what had passed, while Steve Hall from We Are Klang played the recorder with his anus. It was as fitting a soundtrack as one could hope for.’
It’s not just the comedians providing the bum notes (sorry), they also stumble across it themselves. Richard Herring recalled a very special and curious Edinburgh sight: ‘I was once walking back to the Pleasance from the old Gilded Balloon quite late at night when I saw a couple having sex, quite openly, on a small stretch of grass by the road. They then both waved at me as I passed. And I waved back.’
For Miranda Hart, the Edinburgh Fringe represented a chance to put her depression and agoraphobia behind her, and to dip her toe into the world of comedy. It would be an inauspicious beginning: ‘I first went to the Edinburgh Festival in 1994 with a terrible show called Hurrell and Hart and said to myself, “If I get an OK review and one night with more than 20 people in the audience then I am going to try to do this for a living.”’ Although, as she confessed years later to Fern Britton, they had to cancel most nights because no one turned up, one evening they performed to 21 people. In addition, what Hart describes now as a ‘very OK three-star review in The Scotsman’ made her determined to continue.
It would, however, be six years before she returned to the Festival, this time in 2000 with Charity Trimm in the double-act the Orange Girls. The reviews were varied, from the dismissive (‘The Orange Girls really are taking the pith. And that’s the quality of much of their material’) to the more considered (‘The duo’s show includes some nice sketches… as well as the aforementioned byplay, and the girls work equally well together in either mode’). Making good use of their disparate heights led to one review comparing them unfavourably with Little and Large, but another critic was more encouraging: ‘It’s a good start for a comedy double-act, and the Orange Girls make much of it; a couple of times Hart literally tucks Trimm under her arm and carries her across the stage.’
Despite a modest press reaction and humble audience numbers, they must have made some waves. Later in 2000, they contributed sketch material to the schools science series Scientific Eye, made by Yorkshire Television for Channel 4. In the programme, they demonstrate thermometers and how to make ice cream. You can still dig it up on YouTube.
Hart and Trimm worked together at Edinburgh again in 2001, but this time, instead of putting on a sketch show, they took part in The Sitcom Trials, a show devised and hosted by the Scottish comedian Kev F. Sutherland. Anyone can apply, and the shortlisted scripts are performed in front of a live audience who vote for which they like best. They then only see the ending of the chosen sitcom. The show had started out at The Comedy Box in Bristol in 1999, before playing at three Edinburgh Festivals, and leading to a series on ITV1 in 2003, and tours including Hollywood in 2005. It has now settled in its new home at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.
It was at Edinburgh 2001 that Miranda’s eponymously titled sitcom began life. The Sitcom Trials site sums it up: ‘It features Miranda, working in a joke shop that sells penis pasta, with a diminutive blonde sidekick, originally played by Charity Trimm, and the love interest in the cafe, played here by Gerard Foster.’ The way in which Hart and Trimm fight over Sebastian (a character very similar to Gary) is much like the way Miranda and Stevie (Sarah Hadland) bicker and compete in the BBC sitcom. Even the character of Clive was present, played by Daniel Clegg. Ironically, James Holmes, who took on the role for television, performed in The Sitcom Trials the very next year. In February 2002, the show was restaged at the Leicester Comedy Festival, after which Miranda concluded she would have to go it alone for her next show.
The Edinburgh Fringe Programme for 2002 described her solo show, Miranda Hart… throb, as ‘Character comedy from an up-and-coming comedy actress, formerly half of The Orange Girls double act. Miranda Hart-Throbs is in understudy rehearsals for a show – she is a wannabe, desperate for fame, but will she make it?’
In the show, she interacted with the crew as well as the audience themselves. Margaret Cabourn-Smith played the director and the technicians were Daniel Clegg and Anne-Marie Draycott. Hart borrowed £7,000 from a friend to put the show on and, unlike with Hurrell and Hart, she got a good audience, but still ended up losing money. Such is Edinburgh. But talk was beginning to spread and reviewers