Could you first introduce yourself to the reader?
Clare: I’m Clare Bartholomew, I play Barb in The Anniversary.
Dan: I’m Clare’s friend and I play Barb’s husband, Jim.
How would you describe your show?
Clare: The Anniversary is a largely non-verbal, physical comedy farce that Dan and I created together alongside an amazing team of artistic collaborators. The tagline for the show is; It's Mr. Bean meets The Shining because of its absurd slapstick and ridiculous cartoon violence.
Dan: Clare and I play Jim & Barb, an elderly couple who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Their party preparations are meticulously executed under the watchful eye of Barb and in the tradition of farce everything that is ‘set up’ completely unravels with devastating but extremely funny consequences, and embarrassingly all in front of their guests. The only words that Jim & Barb say are each other’s names, and the names of their pets; Fluffy the rabbit and Tiddles their cat. The show is a wonderful combination of farce, ridiculous slapstick, absurd puppetry and cartoon horror.
Why do you want to perform at Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
Clare: Edinburgh is a meeting place for hundreds of artists, presenters, producers and audience goers from all over the world. It’s a brilliant testing ground to see how the show fares with an international audience.
Dan: It’s an exciting month where you can see wonderful shows from all over the world. I try and see as many shows as possible and many of our friends are performing there, so it’s always an opportunity to catch up with everyone.
What differentiates it from other festivals?
Clare: It is the ultimate showcase for new work and somewhere we love to return to with brand new work. it is the place for future presenters to see your work and hopefully present your show in their hometowns and cities.
Dan: The size and scale of it is immense. There’s nothing like it in the world.
Clare: And of course, Edinburgh is such a stunning city, steeped in history. There’s a freakin’ castle and Arthur’s Seat to climb, just to be there is a joy in itself.
What first motivated you to enter the industry? Who were your inspirations?
Clare: I loved watching musicals with Doris Day and Julie Andrews as a kid and my Dad took us to Pink Panther movies. On telly we watched Not the 9 O’ Clock News, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and my Mum really like ballet and we went to all of them up in the cheap seats up in the Gods. I loved reading funny comics like the Beano and Whizzer and Chips and watching cartoons and I think all that physical comedy and slapstick humour has just stayed with me from childhood.
Dan: And The Muppets…
Clare: Always The Muppets!
Dan: I was really fortunate that my parents and my grandparents took me to see everything from Circus Oz, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to Los Trios Ringbarkus when I was a little kid and so I kind of fell in love with the world of performance from a young age. Also, a combination of seeing Duran Duran, Culture Club, Billy Connelly and Steve Martin, on the telly. I started putting cover bands together in my last couple of years at school and working in theatre and tv.
How has your background, upbringing and education had an impact on your artistic career?
Dan: I got a part in a play with one of the directing students at The Victorian College of the Arts and I would go to all the parties with all the directors and say if you need an actor for your play, I’ll do it. So even though I wasn't paying any fees or doing any homework, I would spend pretty much every day for two years going to VCA. It expanded my awareness of avant-garde and unconventional theatre. It also made me understand more about the process of creating a character and devising material.
Clare: I think I always enjoyed doing drama at high school and I loved being in school musicals. I did dance classes from a very young age, so I think it was just following my pleasure and I was interested in, rather than a motivation to enter an industry. I just kept doing what I enjoyed and eventually earnt money from it. I also found that the friends I made at drama school, or enjoyed being in a workshop with were the kinds of people that I wanted to be around. I enjoyed the way their minds worked and I enjoyed how open they were and how kind of free and progressive people were who seemed to be attracted to the arts.
What is your earliest childhood art memory?
Dan: When I was about 5, my mum used to take me to a thing called ‘free movement to music’. Someone would play the piano and the kids would just move around however they wanted to. My grandparents were part of a social lodge and I performed this free movement to music. I made a bunch of old folks put on a record watch me run around a hall while they clapped along. My parents and grandparents were way too encouraging.
Clare: I remember just drawing a lot, and I really liked using my mum's old makeup to do horror makeup in my bedroom with lots of bruises and blood.
If you didn’t have your current job, what would you probably be doing?
Clare: I did work experience in film and television and thought I might be a producer or director and I remember there was a course in HR I was a little interested in, but I’ve never strayed far from live performance. When I get older, I’d like to chop mushrooms slowly in a café, that’s my future dream job.
Dan: I'd be interested in running a venue, like a cabaret room.
Did Covid-19 change the way you create work? Do you approach shows with a different mentality now?
Clare: This show was created before the pandemic but it was postponed numerous times due to covid and lockdowns and as we had two years to think about it, we re-wrote it twice. It’s instilled in me that you always need to spend longer than you think creating a show.
Dan: I spent 2021 doing Masters of Theatre Writing. My intention going in there was to investigate how to keep a performance interesting for an hour or more and sustain people's attention? I've been having a lot of conversations, and a lot of reading and it's changed my approach in terms of knowing how to understand what's working with narrative and structure in a way that I never used to know.
Describe the last year in 5 words or less?
Clare: Uncertainty, challenge, resilience, optimism and community.
Dan: Set-up, development, turning-point, climax and resolution.
Do you subscribe to the idea that art should be exempt from ‘cancel culture’?
Clare: I don't think anything should be protected just because it's couched as art, having said that, I think some people are quick to want to cancel things rather than engage in an actual debate which might be more helpful.
If you could work with anybody, from any point in history, who would you pick and why?
Clare: I would love to work with theatre director Jos Heuben, I did a two-week workshop with him and loved the way their brain worked with comedy and precision timing. Also, French and Saunders, if I they could have had a third person in the act…
Dan: I'd love to sit in a writer’s room with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. I love to see how they collaborate.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to take a show up to the fringe?
Dan: I think you really need to know why you're going and what you’d like to get out of it. I would talk to lots of people that have done it before. That's the main thing. Do your homework.
Clare: Once you know why you want to go, I would be talking to other performers who’ve toured there and ask them their advice. You really need to know how much money you are willing to lose, as it’s very unlikely you will make any money as the costs far outweigh the box office. Are you going for experience? To sell your show? For fun? And then do a budget!
When and where can people see your show?
Clare: 12pm at The Pleasance, King Dome every day!
And where can people find, follow and like you online?
Dan:We’re on Facebook and Insta under our company Salvador Dinosaur and Jim & Barb are also on Tik Tok.
The Anniversary, Pleasance Dome (King Dome), 12:00pm, 3-28 August (not 10, 17 or 24). For tickets and more information visit: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/anniversary#overview
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