EDINBURGH 2022: Horseplay Guest Blog

Guest Blog: Horseplay bring absurdist new character comedy show to the Fringe

Queer comedy duo Horseplay discuss the process of writing sketch comedy and unique characters.

Kathy Maniura and Derek Mitchell of 'Horseplay' blog for Broadway World about bringing Bareback to the Fringe, the way they create their absurdist sketches and the effect the pandemic had on their talking vagina character.

Hey! We're Horseplay.

We're Horseplay, a queer character comedy duo made up of Kathy Maniura and Derek Mitchell, and we're bringing our show Bareback to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. It's an absurd, narrative show set in the afterlife all about sex and performance.

The story follows a smorgasbord of absurd, larger than life characters as they try and adjust to life after death where you can do you anything you like - except perform or have sex. You'll meet a celebrity sex therapist, a failed actress, a talking anus and vagina, and Timothee Chalamet among others. But whilst sex may be the off the menu, and even the smallest display of jazz-hands is strictly prohibited, this is still paradise, and everyone is happy, happy, happy.

Or are they? As the stability of the afterlife starts to unravel, it turns out maybe everyone's not as delighted to be condemned to the heavenly afterlife as they pretend to be... It's a wild ride through musical numbers, quick changes and wigs galore.

Sketch, but make it a play

We've both got a theatre background. Which means that sketch comedy - especially when it's outsize and character-driven - has been our sweet spot since we started performing sketch together at uni. These days, when it comes to our full-length shows, we take our background in more traditional sketch and approach writing comedy like most people approach developing a play (think: Shakespeare).

We like to create characters the audience can get to know over the course of an hour. Characters that change and are unexpected, but simultaneously (hopefully) familiar. We like to write bits that make us laugh, in the hopes they'll make our audience laugh, too. We like sketch because it allows for storytelling you can get lost in. And the comedy we make is pretty absurd. We don't necessarily set out to create things that fit a specific mould! At the end of the day, we love watching comedy that's thoughtful in its silliness. Joyful comedy that anyone can connect with. And absurdity can also be a way into exploring difficult topics - like sex and sexuality, as in Bareback.

In all our work, we create worlds of characters that are larger than life, but also recognisable. Characters that are rooted in our experience, allowing us to engage with a show's themes in ways that are both personal and unexpected. But it definitely doesn't happen overnight.

Slow and steady wins the writing session

We met in 2015 when we were cast in a sketch show put on by the Oxford Revue. There were others in the group, and they've all since quit. So, our partnership is, in the most practical sense, the result of a simple process of elimination.

From the beginning, we were drawn to each other because we both love big characters and creating elaborate fictional worlds. When writing a new show, our process is pretty (and iconically) involved and time-consuming. We've been working on Bareback since 2019 (though of course there was one other kind of major global event that also threw a real spanner in the works - deflated face emoji)!

We tend to start thinking about the themes we want to explore first: sex, performance and death, in this case. Alongside ideas for characters we think could have mileage. Then we lock ourselves in a room/Zoom call and talk through everything a million times. We stick post-it notes on the wall and get to know our characters through improv and work-in-progress shows.

During the pandemic, we pulled apart our existing script and rewrote it several times. Because we're as preoccupied with ensuring jokes are funny as we are with the characters feeling fully rounded and the story making sense. In the end, it's a rewarding process, especially because we can track our progress by looking back at old scripts that always feel loosey-goosey and lovably rough around the edges. While it's happening, it can feel never-ending.

There have been times these past couple of years when the world around us felt more absurd than the version of the afterlife we were populating with a talking anus and vagina. And we were often unsure whether the show would ever see an audience. The fact we're bringing it up to Underbelly at this year's Fringe feels like a dream come true. We truly cannot wait to share Bareback with audiences and welcome them into our world for an hour.

Horseplay: Bareback, Underbelly Cowgate (Belly Dancer), 10.30pm, 4-28 August (not 16)

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Photo credit: Skye Baker

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