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Victoria Nangle catches up with Foster’s Edinburgh Award 2010 nominee Imran Yusuf about being a comedy pioneer

Last year Imran Yusuf became the first comic from the free Fringe to ever be nominated for the prestigious Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly the Perrier). Since then he’s been on the Michael?McIntyre Comedy Roadshow, become a regular on Radio 4 on The Now Show and various panel games and started touring the debut solo show that kicked all of this off in Edinburgh. So how does it feel to be the comedy poster child for quality free comedy?

“Wow, I’m the poster child. It’s like I’ve never grown up! I’ll probably be the poster man,” he chuckles. “It’s very nice to know, it’s got a very kind of underdog quality to it which I really like. That theme I can live with.”
The show itself was meant to be Imran simply going up to Edinburgh under the radar to try out new material and from the bare bones of his first show. However, the reviewers had other ideas and five and four star reviews soon brought his debut huge amounts of critical recognition. “Um, I think basically my career as a ninja is over,” Imran concedes. “I’ll never be able to kind of tip toe around, and see if I can see things out on the quiet, and so I got caught red-handed. I just wanted to go up there and learn how to do an hour because it’s a craft and you need to earn it, and that’s what I wanted to do. But it turned out quite wrong.” But what of his club set, he’d already been gigging?

“It’s really weird because as a comic I was very much a club comic. I knew clubs, but I never had a whole hour to play with it in which I could not only do material but slow it down, be more personal, be more affable. You know building a relationship with the audience. And I never had the opportunity, environment to do that, so in Edinburgh I got to do it and it just took off.”

So how would he describe his show? “There is a large part of it which is quite personal, and very optimistic, I’d say. I’m one of those very naively optimistic people that are actually very irritating. For some reason, it’s just a default setting that I came with, and y’know, that’s really the vibe that I put out.” I suggest it sounds like he bounces at people. “Um yeah. I think one of the things is I’ve always been very ambitious, and I totally believe anything’s possible. I don’t believe in giving up and just quitting . There is always a way to win, and that’s the way I go in to any type of situation.”

On the flip side, Imran’s show also touches on depression. “A few years ago I was really depressed and things were going quite badly, and I had to take control and fix it all. Because I did that I know it’s possible to go and pursue the things you wish to pursue, and in return feel good about yourself. Go and find some fulfilment. And so I love people to watch my show, and feel like wow, he made it, and if we ever feel that way ourselves, we can win.” Here’s to winning. Imran Yusuf is showing us how quite nicely.

An Audience With Imran Yusuf, 21 April, Komedia, 8pm, £12/£10. www.komedia.co.uk/brighton

Brighton Fringe Festival 2011 is packed full of comedy! Victoria Nangle offers her tips on picking the right shows

Saying that there’s something for everyone at a Festival or Fringe has become quite hackneyed. Yes, there’s loads on offer, but how to get to the one that is the precise something for you can be an arduous task. So here are some tips to get you to the right show, and what some of the rights shows might be…
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At 6’8” Greg Davies has always stood out, and with countless TV appearances, a film of The Inbetweeners on its way and a fab stand-up show, Victoria Nangle is impressed

You may recognise Greg Davies as the tyrannical teacher from runaway E4 success The Inbetweeners. Or it could be you’ve seen him in the critically acclaimed comedy sketch group We Are Klang that he makes up one third of. Or you may know him from his other telly work on Ask Rhod, Fast And Loose, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Mock The Week, 8 Out Of 10 Cats… Somewhere along the line over the last year it’s likely the comedy giant will have turned up on your radar. And now he’s in town performing his stand-up show that was the sensation of last year’s Edinburgh Festival. Does the man never sleep?

Could you describe your stand-up show for us in your own words?
Hmmmm.

I can imagine you’re bored of this at the moment…
No, I’m just trying to think of a different way to describe it. It’s a celebration of the moment in life when you are just doing the thing that you’re doing, and not thinking about the consequences of it. Or worrying about your past, or your future. You are just living in the moment, and inevitably those moments are puerile and some would say pointless.

You brought the show to Brighton in October. Has it changed since then?
Yeah, I keep adding loads because people keep coming out of the woodwork from my past, and being like, “Oh, that’s good, but do you remember this?” So yes… if I keep touring the show, hopefully, eventually, it will be over three weeks long [laughs].

Can you give an example of these fab new people? Read the rest of this article »

Award-winning sketch group & comedy connoisseurs Pappy’s answer the hard questions from Victoria Nangle

The new show – more of the same fun songs and sketches?
This year we’ve decided to stop messing around, hence the title: ‘All Business’. We’ve bought suits and made the audience our shareholders. The only problem is we don’t know what the term shareholders means and have no money left as we’ve spent it all on suits.
 
We’ve seen you separately on Fast And Loose, Meet The Parents and the fab Trinny and Susannah comeback. Are Pappy’s members going solo?
Not at all. There was only one part available in each of those projects. If we’d turned up on each others’ shoulders in a big coat we’d have been found out. Read the rest of this article »