No ifs, no buts, the ludicrously entertaining Buttless Chaps are back to take a second hit at the Oxford comedy scene. Made up of parody extraordinaires Will Hislop, Barney Fishwick, Kieran Ahern, and Phoebe Hames, the group that brought you Some Funny in Trinity is back for a little bit more in 6th week.
Reluctant to reveal their plans in too much detail, Hislop tantalisingly assures me that it will be “a veritable smorgasbord of comedy treats.” When I asked what will be on the menu, I’m told that they’ll be serving up a wide variety of new material, peppered with some ‘familiar faces.’
One of the new faces will be Jack Martin, a professional jazz pianist, who describes his musical style as “quite Elton-John-y,” going on to cite Andrew Lloyd Webber as a major influence. This may seem at odds with the group’s light-hearted sketches, but that’s the beauty of it. Hislop explains how the growing momentum of the Buttless Chaps is drawing in such helpless auxiliaries: “The family is definitely growing. We’re drawing on a broader pool of both material and writers, including Sam Mills”.
However, Kieran reminds us that the family has also shrunk. When asked if their fifth member didn’t make the cut for their Michelin standards, Fishwick stammers that “he’s on paternity leave.” Nobly powering through such artistic difficulties, Hames assures me that the new show will be a humorous tapestry: “We’re particularly excited about the five-minute musical and we’ve even thrown in a recorder solo.”
Barney takes me through the ideas behind of the show as a whole: “It’s going to have a much more coherent structure than our last show. We’ve worked a lot on creating links between sketches, creating over-arching plot lines.” Like a pointillist painting, the audience should find itself appreciating the accumulative artistry even more by stepping back from the work. Provided we don’t step out of the theatre…
Thankfully, the group have managed to stay grounded despite being exposed to the dizzy heights of the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Hislop calls it “a great experience and a great bonding opportunity” and Barney agrees: “Yeah, it was really interesting to watch other acts and steal their ideas.” Anyone who was in Edinburgh this summer is thus warned to prepare themselves for an overwhelming and undeniable sense of déjà vu.
This Aristotelian musing on the nature and origin of comedy leads the group to indulge in a charming moment of nostalgia. They’ve come a long way since their inception; whereas Hislop and Fishwick have been giggling with each other since before they could gurgle, they met Hames and Ahern through auditions. The power of comedy turned Ahern’s life around: “I was sleeping under a bench at the time.” Hislop smiles paternally, relating how: “When I first met Kieran, I told him how impressed I was with his unrelenting jokes, to which he replied ‘I’m always on, I’m like an Aga.’ That was when I knew I’d found something special.”
And something special, they are. Ending with a plea that the show will be “£5 well spent,” Barney divulges, “the more people laugh, the less I cry at night…” So as if you needed any more reasons to head down to the Burton Taylor this 6th week, Ahern asks suggestively, addressing the Oxford community at large, whilst slurping his Doctor Pepper: “Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”
More Funny will be playing at 9:30 pm at the Burton Taylor Studio from Tuesday 19th to Sat 23rd Nov. Tickets are £6 (£5)
