EDINBURGH 2019: Alexander Fox Q&A

BWW catches up with Alexander Fox to chat about bringing Snare to the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

What is the setting for the show?

The show is set in Abbey Road Studios - but not, as I had previously been led to believe, the Abbey Road Studios. Just another Abbey Road Studios, this time in Edinburgh. I guess it just teaches us all one lesson: never, ever underestimate how many abbeys there used to be. The audience are positioned around a recording studio, with a huge electronic drum kit at its centre.

How involved do the audience get?

The audience aren't merely punters: they're a group of hand-picked session musicians, all coming that day to help me finish recording my 'difficult second album', Snare. That said, they don't actually have to play any music outside of blowing on imaginary trumpets. All the music is taken care of by me and my recording engineers Jack and Scott, very much Brian Eno and Quincy Jones but for a tenner-an-hour.

As your debut show Ringo was so well received are you feeling any pressure?

I feel incredible pressure all of the time. Partly to make the drum solo finale very good and polyrhythmic. Partly to make the show very humorous, not least because the plot is a homage to The Graduate, my favourite film. And mostly because I'm not able to include a Ringo Starr impression this time around. But pressure is a good thing, and there's no doubt in my mind that Snare will be a more patient, mature and funny show than Ringo was. Not least because having an affair with my college drum teacher, 20 years my senior, was a preposterously funny thing to do.

Who would you recommend comes to see Snare?

If you like music - the playing of it, the rigours of learning an instrument, how a musician (in my case, a drummer) must be disciplined yet creatively improvisational at the same time - you'll enjoy Snare. But, ultimately, I'm not a professional musician, or even a musical comedian - I'm a narrative comedian who happens to play music. So if you enjoy comedy - from wordplay to jokes and from observational to confessional - you'll enjoy the show too. Audiences young and old reacted to different bits of Ringo. Likewise, there is something for everyone in Snare, and I won't stop working my behind off onstage until I'm confident we've all had a really good time together in each other's company. So, without further ado - drum roll please...

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/alexander-fox-snare

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