Interview: David Fynn Chats UNDATEABLE & #15SecondShakespeare

Bad news comedy fans, after spending most of your Black Friday in a post-shopping, tryptophan-induced coma, you will not be able to share your evening with the hilarious cast of NBC's live sitcom UNDATEABLE. Preempted by the holiday favorite, the National Dog Show, the Black Eyes Bar crew will be back with an all-new live episode next Friday; well, actually two all-new episodes, since the UNDATEABLE gang performs each episode twice, once live for the East Coast, and again live for the West Coast. One of the joys of my Monday morning is watching both versions back-to-back on Hulu to see what jokes were added for the second broadcast.

Now in its third season, and first to be broadcast completely live, UNDATEABLE centers on a Detroit bar where a unique group of friends works and hangs out. The show's bartender Brett, is played by British actor David Fynn. With an award-winning background in the theatre, Fynn has starred in the National Theatre of London's SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER, the Royal Shakespeare Company's MOJO, on the West End in AFTER THE PARTY, and in the Donmar Warehouse's production of THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, for which he was nominated for a BroadwayWorld Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

In addition to his eclectic stage work, Fynn has appeared on DOCTOR WHO, SHERLOCK, GAME OF THRONES, and more. However, as the recently out-of-the-closet Brett, Fynn has begun to use his celebrity for a good cause, even if it started out as a sleep-deprived accident.
"I was in the UK, and I had jetlag, so I was just up and bored," Fynn said. "I think I heard the song 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' or something like that, and I thought, 'That would be really funny if I did that in a posh, Shakespearean kind of thing.'"

And thus, the hashtag #15SecondShakespeare was born. After putting out a handful of similar videos, Fynn noticed that friends of his were starting to get involved as well. When he realized that other people were having as much fun with the idea as he was, Fynn decided to take the concept to the next level.

"I put another one up, and I challenged people to respond to it; and then it just kind of caught on like wildfire," he said. "Then I thought it would be a shame to not use the opportunity to attach it to a charity. The Syrian refugee crisis was just happening that week, so I thought that was probably the most pressing thing happening in the world."

Since issuing his social media challenge, hundreds of people, including some major celebrities, have joined the cause, helping to raise money and awareness for refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war. Broadway and West End star Hadley Fraser declared himself "The Hotstepper," THE COLOR PURPLE's Cynthia Erivo took a turn as Beyonce, Minnie Driver ain't sayin' she's a gold digga, and MASTERS OF SEX's Michael Sheen got down to the Pet Shop Boys, just to name a few. However, as any good Shakespearean scholar could guess, there is one voice that stood out amongst the contributors for Fynn.

"It's gotta be Patrick Stewart, for sure. Him and Ian McKellen are kind of the Holy Grail of Shakespearean acting," Fynn said. "I was talking to Minnie Driver, because she did an episode of UNDATEABLE, and she went to the same drama school as me. She was doing a movie with Patrick Stewart at the time, so she was my link to him to get him to do it."

In addition to the exposure and funds raised for the Red Cross, Fynn said that the #15SecondShakespeare project had another exciting, unintended benefit.

"One of my favorite things about it was that teachers started sending it as homework for their drama students," he said. "If it's a way to access classical texts for kids, then that's another added bonus of the thing that I blundered into by accident."

While no one would consider an UNDATEABLE script a classic text, it has become an unexpected Friday night hit for NBC, especially since going live full-time earlier this fall. Much like NBC's live musicals, the show feels like a special event every week, something that Fynn said was lost a bit before the transition this season.

"I think the live aspect is really helpful, because our show on tape nights always felt like a party," Fynn said, "but somewhere in the edits of Seasons 1 and 2, that atmosphere was lost somehow. So, it's really nice to capture that, and I think the live episode does make it feel a little more like a party."

During the break in between shows, Fynn and the rest of cast, including the show's stars, comedians Chris D'Elia and Brent Morin, have a myriad of responsibilities from shooting commercials and digital shorts, to reworking the script, based on the reception it received in the first broadcast.

"It's always busy, there's very little down time," Fynn said. "I think that's quite a good thing to keep the atmosphere up. We get some rewrites and some cuts; some jokes that perhaps didn't land as well as we'd hoped, we will come in and re-do (them)."

Another added benefit to broadcasting live is that the cast is able to interact with fans while the show is going on. It is common practice for the actors to Tweet, Instagram, Facebook, and Periscope while the show is going on.

"Because we're live, I think it would be foolish not to use the social media to our advantage," Fynn said. "Being more accessible is the key, bringing people into the show. We're encouraged to tweet during the show itself, while we're on stage. There was a scene the other night when Chris came in in a ridiculous outfit, I Periscoped the whole thing from the bar."

The interaction that the UNDATEABLE cast has with fans while each episode is going on, is just another reason that this "live experiment" makes the show standout from other sitcoms.

"It's different as well, because I don't think anyone else does it," Fynn said. "It's a modern way to do a studio sitcom, and it's nice to be trying something different, it's new and it's fresh. You watch sitcoms now and people are never on their phones, but if you walk into a bar in real life, people just sit on their phones all the time. It is meta, but it is realistic for people to sit there and be on their phones."

While the cast hasn't seen the scripts for any upcoming episodes, Fynn did share that he has heard rumblings about a major upcoming storyline for D'Elia's serially single character.

"I know there's talk of a love interest for Danny. I've heard whispers on the grapevine," Fynn hinted. "I think they're in negotiations with quite a cool actress for that."

UNDATEABLE returns on Friday, December 4th live at 8:00pm ET. They will air two episodes before the holiday hiatus, and then will wrap up their third season in January. While Fynn is usually a source for well-timed punchlines, he's hoping that his character gets some action soon.

"It would be great to get some sort of love interest for Brett," the actor said. "I think it would be cool, it would be something fun to play with."

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What song do you think needs the #15SecondShakespeare treatment? Let me know in the comments below, or on Twitter @BWWMatt. If you want to follow along with my "366 in 366" articles, you can check out #BWW366in366 on Twitter. Also, don't forget to follow @BWWTVWorld on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for all of the latest TV news, reviews, and recaps.

Banner Image Credit: Puppet Brett and David Fynn on UNDATEABLE: Greg Gayne | NBC