Making his debut at the Fringe with his show My Gift To You, Alfie Packham brings an hour to Edinburgh about gifts and their meaning. Here Packham chats to Pepper&Salt about what he is looking forward to about making his debut as well as the role of comedians challenging those positions of power.
What do you enjoy the most about being a comedian?
Writing something new that works and makes a big crowd of people laugh. I think that there’s a real rush when that happens.
Is this your first year at the Fringe or have you been up before?
I did a 45-minute version of this which was a much more unformed version of the show last year, I did that for two weeks. And then the year before that I did a split bill show with my friend, Luke Chilton, who is also up here doing his debut this year. And we had a very empty show that we did for month in a very hot room. He was a good guy to do it with thought, because he’s very positive and kept our morale up.
What are you looking forward to the most at the Fringe?
When the shows go well, there’s no better feeling than that, but I also enjoy seeing my friends’ shows; you see snippets of their act during comedy club nights, but it’s almost like seeing the fruits of their labours after a year of gigging with them and I find that quite exciting. It gives me more motivation to do my own stuff when I see my friends doing exciting things.
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’m in no danger of becoming a king, that’s for sure. But I think some comedians are increasingly turned to for their sincere thoughts on quite important matters, and I think I would The line have definitely been blurred by recent years of incompetence in government, but I think we’ve got to do our best to keep the two separate. There’s a danger of a comedian who think that they’re the king, and there’s certainly a few about but I think it’s important that the roles stay separate. We have plenty of comedians who take themselves too seriously, and politicians who aren’t serious enough. So, I’ve got to agree with the big man Shakespeare on this one.
So, do you think it’s not the comedian’s job to speak truth to power?
It’s not the only job, cause you can equally say that of journalists and political campaigners. I feel like comedy is as reflective as it is an agent of change. I think it often reflects the times we’re in as much as it changes the times we’re in, and I think people are often conflating a bit of political satire with political activism. Chris Morris made a really good point about this about, “You don’t want to do comedy for the court.”
By Katerina Partolina Schwartz
Photo Credit: Rebecca Need-Menear
Pepper & Salt 
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