Pepper&Salt talks to Stuart Laws about his 2024 Fringe hour ‘Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking?’, his comedy process and tips for how audiences can approach choosing a show in Edinburgh this year.
What’s the elevator pitch for your show?
Last year I started telling the truth onstage properly for the first time and it went so well that now I’ve been forced into having to continue to tell the truth and reveal more about myself, which is something that I previously was very uncomfortable doing. I liked to have this fourth wall, this sort of plausible deniability. I also enjoy just making stuff up, and it was always quite easy; I’d think I wasn’t good enough as a comedian to talk about myself truthfully and so it was easier to hide behind silly stories or made-up stuff.
How does your experience as a comedy director feed into your own writing and performance or do you keep the roles separate in some way?
I direct not only the live show, but I also direct people’s specials and they are obviously different jobs. So, the live show, you would be working with the comic to sort of develop material, work out structure, identify themes, maybe even work on performance. And a special is working out visually how you want to represent that show; working with the comedian to understand like the specifics about the show, tonally what they’re going for and then film that the best way possible. I think what is good about both jobs is that it makes you consider a show from so many different angles, and I think I do use that for my own shows, my own writing, my own development where I’m like, “Right, well, if I’m filming this, how does that come across?” And that will change how a certain routine comes together. What I love to do is write a bunch of routines- which is what happened with this new show- I have little notes, little ideas, some routines that were doing well onstage, and then sit down and just be like, “Right, what does it all mean? How does it all tie together?” And directing has helped me see that bigger picture.
How did you name your show?
Basically, what happens with all my shows is that at some point I have to name it for a festival or a work-in-progress and I think of something that makes me laugh and throw that out there, and it so happens quite a lot, I suddenly realise, “Oh that is actually thematically relevant in some way to like the show.” So the last one, Stuart Laws, Is That Guy Still Going? I thought was funny because you know, I am still doing comedy …15 years in, and thought that’s a funny show title which thematically ties into permanence and grief and all sorts of different things. The new show, Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking? used to be called Has To Be Joking By This Point?, and again I thought it was funny to be like, “Yeah, I’m still going, and surely someone’s joking around about this.” And as I realised that the show’s going to be more about the autistic experience and relationships and things like that, I realised a shortening of it, Has To Be Joking? is an expression of an autistic experience where you’re like, “Yeah, I’m joking.” It’s a thing to do with tone, to do with perception that is relevant to the autistic experience and so I was like, “You know what, that stays in, that is relevant to the show.”
What can audiences and reviewers do to support acts that are getting a little lost in the sea of shows?
It is difficult because, I’m as guilty of it as anyone, so often I’ll watch a Marvel film at the cinema rather than the indie one that I know less about where I’m like, “Oh what am I doing, I could have a rally good experience here,” but we’re drawn to that comfort. I would say if you are reading interviews with comedians and they are doing recommendations, those are often a chance for a comic to suggest something a little unexpected or to give a shout out to an act that maybe isn’t getting as much PR.
It costs so much money to go to Edinburgh and to pay for PR is between £1500 and £3000 for an act; that is a huge amount of money for someone to spend, to get a director is between £1000 and £3000. So, if there’s a way of digging and reading through people’s Q&As or even tweeting a comedian you like and say, “Is there an act or shows that you really would recommend?” Whenever I’ve had messages like that, it’s always been really fun to be like, “Oh yeah, go and see this one, this one and this one. These are really great ones to see.” And also there’s loads of comedy fans that seem to know each other and go to festivals like Machynlleth Comedy Festival or Wells Comedy Festival. The Comedians’ Comedian Podcast group on Facebook has a really good network of people who are recommending shows and sharing their spreadsheet for what shows they’re going to see in Edinburgh that year, and they’re often a good way to find exciting acts who maybe aren’t being spoken about as much.
If you’re a comedy fan, it’s always worth taking a risk on seeing someone you haven’t seen before or listening to recommendations or just seeing if someone’s done a YouTube video or social media video, and go “Ah that’s funny, I’ll see whether they’ve got any shows coming up,” or anything like that. It’s such an exciting scene in the UK and it’s so difficult to build an audience, so taking a risk and seeing someone new is always an exciting thing to do. And at worst it’s an hour of your life. But it might be that you find your new favourite comedian and it’s so exciting that shows like Taskmaster are out there that are promoting acts that maybe wouldn’t otherwise get on TV and they’re going on to massive tours like John Kearns and Sam Campbell. Or even like shifting the perspective on someone like Lucy Beaumont, who’s suddenly everyone’s favourite comedian because she’s so funny but perhaps never had a TV thing that showcased that to such a huge audience. She’s always been so popular on the circuit, but now seeing that her audience has gotten massive is exciting. For me, I would say, I’m directing a show by Ruby Carr this year, and she’s a really exciting new comedian. She’s doing her debut and is always fun to watch, so I’d recommend that show.
On that note, apart from the shows that you are involved with, what shows would you recommend?
I would recommend Alex Kealy’s and Marjaolein Robertson’s shows. They’re both very different comedians and they’re both in the room next to mine – either side of my show – and they’re just both so funny as people, they come at comedy in such a different way. Marjaolein is from Shetland, and she tells these storytelling shows based in folklore, but she’s inherently a really silly, funny person. Alex Kealy is an uptight posh boy who overanalyses everything but brings that to personal relationships and things like that to a really funny level. Both of them are such a joy to watch because they’ve got this silly core to them but come at it in such different ways.
In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?
I think comedians regularly get too high off their own supply; just because they make a room full of people laugh, they think therefore they are qualified to make grandiose statement on all sorts of things. There is a sense of like, “Oh wow, all of these people respect me and love me, therefore they respect and love all of my very serious points as well,” and you go, “no ultimately your job is to be funny.” If you start to use that platform, it’s fine to use it to talk about serious things but the focus should always be funny and if you find yourself suddenly viewing yourself as an intellectual powerhouse, then shift into that if you want, but don’t try and pretend that a potentially triggering joke is actually you telling truth to power.
Ultimately, we are all silly idiots, we’re fools and if you want to be a king, go and do that but don’t try and have your cake and eat it. It’s such an understandable reflex I think; night after night you have rooms full of people like adore everything you’re saying but that doesn’t mean what you’re saying is intellectually superior or worth hearing, it just means it’s funny to that particular group of people. That should be enough, you don’t need to be like the intellectual powerhouse as well. It’s interesting though because it’s such an ego trip and so many people seem to fall into that area and, I guess some good things have come from it, I’m sure that people have used that power to get more eyes on certain things, I just think that the focus should always be on being funny and not saying controversial things to try and provoke discussion. It seems an unusual desire and I would’ve thought a lot of people would grow out of it after Sixth form but maybe not.
By Katerina Partolina Schwartz
Photo Credit: Ed Moore
Pepper & Salt 