Performance
© Ridiculusmus 2009
Supported by:
The Herald, Glasgow 2003 (interview)
Ridiculusmus, The Herald, 20 August 2003
Fringe performance: So that’s the big idea
by Mary Brennan
RIDICULUSMUS are back, twice over. Which is to say they’re currently offering their particular brand of “broken comedy” nightly at the Pleasance Dome and preparing to slip into something more theatrical with Ideas Men at Theatre Workshop – five shows only, starting today.
It’s four years since those hard-core surrealists, Jon Hough and David Woods, launched a two-pronged attack on the Fringe, picking up various awards, including a Herald Angel, for The Exhibitionists and Yes,Yes,Yes. There were signs of interest from TV producers, but, sadly that kind of fast-breeder creativity doesn’t really fit on television.
They’re both open about the disappointment they felt when, having been nominated for the Granada Comedy Writing Award, nothing came of it. The contacts and contracts that could have come out of a TV deal would have provided a degree of unfamiliar security. It was back to the drawing board, and the van, and on to the next piece, Say Nothing, which came to the Fringe in 2000. The tours were getting further and further flung by this time, and the fan-base now had outposts overseas and Down Under.
The next great plan was a Ridiculusmus retrospective in 2001, celebrating nine years of the company’s existence. A major London season was set up, there had been lengthy previews in the press, when Hough’s lung collapsed and he was hospitalised. “I wasn’t aware of anything much,” he recalls. “I was just lying there, high on diamorphine.”
Woods, in opportunistic mode, video-ed him and incorporated the footage in an impromptu solo piece. Lesser madmen might well have chucked the towel in at this point. But there is something in Hough and Woods that is both instinctive and driven.
Cue the new show, Ideas Men, which is a Barbican commission, briefly on the Fringe as part of the British Council showcase. Set in an office full of sniping “suits” who spend more time scoring points off one another than coming up with “the next big thing”, Ideas Men is unnervingly accurate, funny, and likely to make some folk squirm at recognisable types and situations.
Hough, who has relatives working within the Home Office, remembers their initial reaction to an early run. “Afterwards they said, ‘How did you know it was exactly like that? How did you know about the nicknames?’ ”
It’s perhaps worth mentioning that when Hough and Woods aren’t performing as Ridiculusmus, they support themselves by doing whatever comes to hand. They recently spent a month as painters and decorators. “We wanted something where we could listen to Radio 4 all day,” says Hough.
While Ideas Men takes the lid off the exquisite humiliations and stresses that beset those who fail to have a constant stream of marketable new ideas, the sketch show – called Ridiculusmus – is more about the relationship and rapport between Hough and Woods.
Watching them slip in and out of different characters, the thought occurs that they’re like Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, but having the conversations we never hear once the curtain’s fallen on Waiting for Godot. “When it’s just us – well, what you get then comes out of the deep, dark zone of our joint heads; comes out of our experiences.” Just how much material they’ve accumulated became apparent when they recently completed an MA together. “We studied ourselves,” says Woods gleefully. “We spent some time analysing what we do. Then we both wrote a thesis. Hopefully we’ll find a publisher.”
A possible book, two new shows, fresh tours on the horizon: Woods agrees that should keep them fed. But he admits the broadcasting breakthrough eludes them. “We’re hoping some radio producer will pick up on the sketch show.”
Related pages:
.. The Independent, London 2003 .. The Guardian, London 2003