Since launching in 2014, Glee Club’s Comedy Carousel has become something of a cult hit with audiences. Hosted by Clint Edwards and Robin Morgan, both leading lights of the Welsh comedy scene, the night breaks from the typical three-acts-and-a-compere night with special guests, new acts and more – as Clint explains…
Comedy Carousel isn’t your typical several-acts-and-a-compere – can you tell us a bit about the format of the show?
Yeah, it’s different from other comedy nights, the hosting is interactive, improvisational stuff between the audience, myself and my co-host Robin Morgan, where we’re linked up to the internet, and are free to explore wherever the UK browsing laws allow. The rest of the night includes two top acts opening and closing the show, and a middle section that changes. It can be several up and coming acts on the circuit, games, sketch comedy, all sorts. We’ve also had special guests drop in to work on new material for their next stand-up DVD. We aim for a dependable night out but with unpredictable content. I really like it; the feeling is less restricted than some other comedy formats.
With a strong reliance on audience input AND technology, have there been any notable incidents or mishaps?
Technology wise, yes. Amazing how, even when you’ve run through the tech before the show, making sure it’s all linked up and working, the moment the show starts it’s like the computer gets stage fright and goes all weird. It’s only happened a couple of times and it’s never a real hurdle, as even without the technical stuff we have ideas planned.
As far as the audience goes, there’s never really a problem with finding funny stuff. Us humans are fascinatingly odd creatures. Even if, hypothetically, you had an audience of one, then between that person, Robin and myself, there’s going to be a combined total of something like 75 years of experiences to explore and find funny connections in.
That said I really hope to never gig to an audience of one.
Do you do much research and prep in the run up to each Comedy Carousel?
Haha! Yeah, and then we watch as that usually goes straight out the window. We look at the news everyday and see what catches our interest. We always just use the news from that week, to keep it topical and fresh. Then we gather our favourite few stories together. Sometimes we’ll have a hidden one to surprise the other person with. That’s fun, because it means they’re seeing it for first time as well as the audience. It’s all geared toward never doing the same thing each week and presenting something unique each time.
The show has some great ‘name’ guests coming up including the Noise Next Door and Dane Baptiste – who has previously appeared in the show?
As I said, we sometimes get the bigger acts dropping in to try new material, but we can’t advertise that anywhere as it’s all on the down-low. I like that aspect because it makes it more special for the people who are already coming. Like an added bonus or DVD Easter egg.
You also welcome brand new acts in the show – any stand-out names we should be keeping an eye on?
Ooooooh! Out of the brand new lot, off the top of my head, both Sarah Breese and Darren Masterton have made me laugh a lot.
As far as more experienced, but still ‘up and coming’ acts go, Tom Ward is great. He’s doing Carousel on the 29th September and is well worth a watch.
You’ve been deeply involved in Cardiff’s comedy scene for many years now – how has the scene changed since you started out?
Good grief. Quite a lot. It used to be two open spot nights at opposite ends of town, where you’d get booked into one, do 10 minutes, get all excited about your new found career path, then have to wait two months for your next gig at the other one. I’m not even exaggerating. I think I did something like 20 gigs in my first couple of years.
Now I have no idea how many gigs there are in Cardiff. Somewhere around 500 each week? Roughly.
You’re returning to the Leak with Tom Price for BBC Radio Wales soon (to be broadcast 3 June 2016), examining the week’s stories – do you enjoy topical comedy?
Oh yeah, I love it. I pretty much have BBC News 24 on all the time in the house, it’s like when you leave a radio on for a dog when you go out so it doesn’t get lonely. BBC News 24 is my screensaver. And because it repeats so much I find myself hearing it in the background and ‘throwing’ to the next section just before they do using the same words.
Now I’ve said that that makes me sound mad. Like some Andy Kaufman or Rupert Pupkin type.
One of my favourite things is noticing the mistakes. When you watch rolling live news for, say, 14 hours in a day, there are so many errors. God I love them. Things like videos not working, guests looking at the wrong camera… last night, well this morning actually, at about 4:30am, there was the anchor sat there with the top half of his head completely out of frame, like when you have passport photos taken and the chair is screwed all the up, way too high.
It took a good 10 seconds before word obviously got through to the camera operator to centre the guy’s bonce. Things like that make me laugh, and, obviously, really edgy biting satire.
What are your plans for the coming months?
Plans include gigging more in the big – I was going to say apple but that’s New York, what fruit is London? Christ knows. It’s probably not a fruit is it? It’s more like a pasty and an indigestion tablet.
So that. I keep getting told I don’t gig there enough, or ever, so that’s what I’m going to do: gig more in the good ol’ pasty and indigestion tablet. And lovely, lovely Cardiff.
* Comedy Carousel takes place on Thursday nights at The Glee, Cardiff. Forthcoming guests include Mark Olver and Kai Humphries (26 May 2016), Dan Nightingale (2 June 2016), and Dane Baptiste and The Noise Next Door (9 June 2016). Tickets, show-only £5 (student)/ £10 or show with food £11.50 (student)/ £18. For full list of guests see: www.glee.co.uk/comedy/cardiff/
words DAVE FREAK