During the week I’ve spent at the Edinburgh Fringe, I haven’t watched a single movie. That doesn’t mean, though, that film hasn’t informed or spilt over into the theatre and stand-up comedy here. The medium is most evident in Simon Munnery’s Fylm School, which has been running monthly evenings for some time in London, and now transfers for a month-long Edinburgh residence. Munnery is a permanently amused stand-up veteran, instantly recognisable with his beanie hat and his beady, scrutinising eyes. The concept is explained at the outset: to show that the camera amplifies the face in the same way that a microphone amplifies the voice; the stage is kept entirely bare throughout the show, save for a screen on which is projected a live feed from the back of the room.
At a desk sits Munnery, talking into a camera; the audience, seated in forward-facing rows in this darkened, improvised cinema, is aware only of what it sees on screen: that is, his face in close-up, with cutaways to various maniacally imaginative digressions in puppet form. On the night I saw the show, he performed a prolonged conversation between two skiing enthusiasts (paper cut-outs, in reality) whose fastidiously dull conversation graduated over ten minutes or so into a glorious and funny exchange of subdued heartbreak. Among the other memorable characters was a shy avocado.
Fylm School also incorporated spots for two gifted comics who had their own shows in the Fringe: Lolly Adefope, whose giggling, indiscreet, “I’m mad, me” character Gemma was acutely observed and sustained (even if it did owe a lot to Victoria Wood), and Rhys James, a darling of Twitter who has the skill and aplomb to exceed 140 characters.
Munnery’s simultaneous mastery of the scathing and the silly is always in evidence in his stand-up but the balance is tipped strongly toward the latter during Fylm School. What gives the evening its uniqueness is the tension between distance and intimacy. Stand-up audiences are accustomed to being confronted with raw confessionals peppered with gags. One impressive comic, Chris Stokes, performed a late-night set in the sweltering Pleasance Attic, straining to be heard over the rhythmic breathing of the indispensable air-conditioning unit. He had good reason to remark on the concerned reaction with which we greeted the material about his divorce, which had a high “ouch” factor. (The material and the divorce, that is.)
A few of the gags were killed, or at least stifled, by our empathy: they got an “ahhh” when Stokes was hoping instead for a “ha-ha”. But his surprise at this, feigned or otherwise, was built into the set nicely, so that it became partly a dialogue about our feelings toward him. (Nothing on the order of the masterful Stewart Lee, of course, whose show at the Assembly Rooms was as self-aware as ever. There was no response we could give, whether enthusiastic or otherwise, that he wasn’t able to turn on us, like Bugs Bunny twisting the barrel of a rifle until it’s pointing right back at Elmer Fudd’s face.)
What Munnery does with the Fylm School format, though, is to tease the audience with the implied closeness of a stand-up gig, without ever stepping out on stage. Cinema is always a dislocated experience: we’re watching light on a screen, nothing more, and often the people we are seeing died long ago. (“Dying” is possible in stand-up, too; perhaps the Fylm School camera, presenting the performer at one remove, offers some footling protection from that on-stage death.) Munnery is present as a disembodied voice but we are always keenly aware that he is in the room with us. It is perhaps the closest we can get to the experience of Mia Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo – at any point, Munnery and his guests could step out from behind the screen (or at least from the back of the room) to turn the filmed image into flesh and blood.
Film was present tangentially also in Coach Coach, the latest vehicle for the muscular talents of Adam Riches. Past shows – the finest being Bring Me the Head of Adam Riches (which won the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2011) and last year’s Adam of the Riches – have been collections of four or five character monologues, with an emphasis on artistic licence (he has played exaggerated incarnations of Sean Bean and Daniel Day-Lewis) and extreme audience interaction (a friend was hauled on stage at one show to give Riches a thorough lathering in an on-stage shower). For that reason, there was an air of trepidation as well as excitement hanging over the queue for this new show, which takes one of the performer’s earlier creations, the “Volfsball” coach Eric Coach, and builds around him a proper narrative, incorporating for the first time a full cast.
Several movie studio fanfares are played simultaneously at the start, promising the sort of recklessly cacophonous comedy for which Riches is renowned. The result, though, is his gentlest work yet. It’s essentially a US-style school sports movie, with clichés harvested from the likes of Teen Wolf and High School Musical. Coach Coach has a sporting failure to live down, and he might just get his chance during the Volfsball finals between the team he coaches, the Centaurs, and the opposing Lizards, who have recently acquired a mystery coach.
On one hand, the audience participation, which is confined largely to the final 15 minutes, would not be so effective if it was sprinkled liberally throughout, as it usually is. On the other, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t sorely missed. The characterisation from Riches and much of the cast is strong but it isn’t always as riotous as it could be. Many of the targets are easy, the references over-familiar. The moments that really took flight were the instances of incongruous daftness—such as a date between two sweethearts who wander among our seats, squeezing themselves needlessly into tight spaces. The show is an interesting new-ish direction from Riches rather than a fully-fledged success; it feels like a cleansing of the palate after the glorious overkill of his previous work.
The double-act Max and Ivan appeared with The End, another show with a strong visual sense. Unfortunately, their tale of life in the seedy, apocalyptic Sudley-on-Sea (a doctored road sign reads: “Please die carefully”) amounts to a string of superficially naughty jokes without a trace of resonance, identity or soul behind them. The show plays like The League of Gentlemen stripped of its barbs and fangs and remodelled slickly for a Live at the Apollo crowd. They’ll go far.
The Edinburgh Fringe continues until 30 August
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