MOON bring sketches about the daft and the dark to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your performing background?
Me and Jacky met doing comedy at university and after that we wrote a few sketches for a fundraiser he helped set up for the Harinder Veriah Trust. It was a cracking night and we came out feeling like we were on to something. This year’s flown by and we hardly expected to have half hour together, then forty, then be at the Fringe within the year! As student fringegoers we really idolised the Pleasance, and so Moon landing in the Attic still feels a little unreal.

Tell me about your show, what it is all about?
Plunging you into sketches about the daft and the dark, with a nod to our time growing up in regional England. Jack is from a town outside St. Helens near Liverpool, and I’m from Shropshire, between Wales and the Black Country. But for us it’s about playing around in the fictions these places inspire: we mostly rattle through our sketches, a whistlestop tour of our twisted provincial imaginations!

How long have you been working on this show and what is it that makes it relevant to audiences in 2018?
It’s been an intense year testing it with all sorts of audiences, and we hope it appeals to anyone a little jaded of the public school fare in sketch, for whom there’s already been some brilliant acts in recent years. We love Gein’s Family Giftshop and Dirty White Boys and the style they’ve each built for themselves, though what Moon’s formula becomes to Fringe audiences remains to be seen I’d say.

Do you have any top tips for surviving the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – both for performers and visitors to the event?
Hydration is key. Not even being euphemistic.

What has been the funniest or most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you on stage?
Performing the full hour to no one out of spite they didn’t come. That was in a solo show I did at the Fringe. Thank God, Jacky picked me up and learned me a trade.

Who are your biggest inspirations in the industry and why?
As Route One as it sounds, I don’t think Only Fools and Horses can be topped for the way it makes you care. There are many comedies that can draw you in like that of course and they’re very special, not least because it’s so hard to build drama beside a joke, as John Sullivan and his cast managed nearly constantly in that show. Magic.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Fix the projector that isn’t working again. At each lapsing attempt we imagine ourselves taking glorious last minute free kicks that could Send Us Through (to just, start the show). Too superstitious about that process to comment further.

What other acts are you looking forward to seeing at Edinburgh Fringe?
Jordan Brookes, Jacob Hawley, Kieran Hodgson, Lazy Susan, Norris & Parker, Rob Oldham, Sisters, The Pin!

Why do you think people should come and see your show over the thousands of others on at the Fringe?
When you put it like that, I can’t help ya mate.

See Moon at the Pleasance Courtyard throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 1st – 27th August.

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