Sketchatron, the biggest gig in the country for hot new sketch acts is back at the Pleasance this week. Instead of showcasing new talent, this one-off special has an exciting line-up of favourite acts that Sketchatron have introduced over the last few years. Now firmly established on the scene, they are some of the most respected comics on the British circuit today. So what's in store for Friday? Will it all be Edinburgh preview stuff? We caught up with the comics involved to find out.
EM: You're allegedly performing bits from your 2009 play The Never Man at Skechatron but when we last caught up with you we got the impression you would be sticking to Victorian stuff. How come the change of heart?
PDs: We'd done three years of Victorian shows and thought that a trilogy was about the right time to move on to something else. Perhaps Steven Spielberg and George Lucas should have done the same with the Indiana Jones films. Huh? Who's with me? Because it was a bit shit? Yeah? That's the kind of bang up-to-date commentary you'll be getting from us now.
EM: Can you tell us a bit about The Never Man and how you came up with the idea? Will Thom get to play a man?!
PDs: It's a comedy thriller about a man who wakes up on a strange theme park island with no memory of who he is. It's like Jason Bourne meets The Prisoner. And then they get on really well. Thom plays that man, so no bearded ladies for him this year. We wanted to find a distinctive genre that we both loved and felt we could have a lot of fun playing around with. But, at the end of the day, it's just a framework to hang jokes off - like a cock gag mobile if you will.
EM: Two of my favourite sketches I've seen you guys do involve shepherds. Are you big fans of the shepherd people?
TATW: Absolutely. We like all people (except murderers and the like) but we both trained as shepherds before we got into comedy so I guess we do tend to write about them a lot. That's actually how we met. We would do impressions of the sheep to each other and laugh so much that the dogs would get confused. One time they herded the sheep into a comedy club by mistake and we had to try and get the sheep off the stage. The audience thought it was an act and went wild for it. We were hooked and the next day we threw in our crooks and headed for London where comedy lives.
EM: What can we expect from the new show Wonderbang?
TATW: Insults, a powerhouse of thrilling and delightful sketches and 'other bits'. No dancing but maybe songs.
EM: Both of you have been off the circuit for a while doing sketches for TV, are you enjoying performing to an audience again?
A&K: Live performance is always great fun to do, assuming the audience aren't throwing chairs at our heads. The other great thing about it is that you get to decide for yourself where you stand on stage as opposed to finding your 'mark' for a camera - this brings with it a great sense of responsibility and excitement.
EM: Will we be seeing all new characters and sketches on Friday?
A&K: 'NEVER LOOK BACK' has always been our motto and so with this in mind we will be trying out some new material. They'll be a couple of new juicy characters making an appearance including two chaps called Jeff Nigelson and Nigel Jefferson.
EM: What does your 2009 show NITWIT entail?
WA: Confidence and electronics - mostly confidence.
EM: You used to perform in the comedy duo Will and Greg. Are you both concentrating on your solo careers at the moment?
WA: For the mo, we are motoring independently - but that tandem still gleams at us from the garage of friendship. (We don't get on - apparently my similes are poor - said like the rhino he is).
EM: Will you be performing classic material at Sketchatron or new stuff? Can we look forward to more rants?
MJ: I think it will be new stuff - that's certainly the plan anyway. My new show is called Telling It Like It Might Be,
so some of it's observational but from the perspective of someone who
knows that he isn't an everyman. I don't notice what other people
notice, other than useful things like warning signs. There should
hopefully be ranting, if I can hold my nerve.
EM: Do you have any exclusive cheese puns you can give us?
MJ: There's this duck that loiters by the pond in my garden. A really posh duck. He sits there drinking sherry and going QUARK.
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