Crizards are taking their celebrated Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut hour Cowboys to Soho Theatre, London, next week (26-28th January).
BBC New Comedy Award Nominees Will Rowland and Eddy Hare find themselves in Oklahoma with great songs and knee-slapping jokes and a unique on-stage dynamic where “the struggle of acting in a Western and appearing macho’ is already funny”.
Eddy says: “We picked cowboys as a genre because Westerns are well-known and are easy to emulate. We want people to have a good time and for the show to be a classic. The comedy I like is based around people’s dynamics, and heighten this for the stage. People don’t want to be satired anymore. We hope people come back to see it if they’ve seen the show before.”
In developing the show’s narrative, Will used social media to gauge online reaction to a series of jokes and landed on some cowboy-themed inspiration. He says: “Before the show came together I went through a period where I decided to write ten jokes a day and ask my girlfriend at the time to pick the best one, which I would tweet. I wrote one that became a line in the show. It was ‘cowboy: there’s a snake in my boot. Snake: there’s a foot in my house. me: perspective is everything in the wild wild west”
The breakdown of Will’s relationship features the show and becomes an emotional roller-coaster of how a cowboy deals with talking about his feelings to a friend who isn’t as comfortable with self-expression. This paves the way for some dreamy comedy.
The comedy duo met over a decade ago. Eddy says: “We met 11 years ago at university. It wasn’t going to well for me and I was very depressed. I decided to join the university’s sketch society and Will was in the room when I auditioned. It wasn’t until 2016 that we started a double act.”
The pair have been stalwarts for over a decade and it’s no surprise their next show work-in-progress at Vault Festival takes on the theme of brothers-in-arms on the frontline as soldiers exploring the dynamic in a different setting.
Back to Cowboys, and the pair reunited to make an Edinburgh debut after Will considered walking away from comedy altogether, only for Eddy to bring him back from the brink.
Will said: “We did a version of the show before lockdown, but I’d actually got to the point where I wasn’t going to do comedy anymore. It was Eddy who persuaded me to come back. I like performing in a partnership because there is something meaningful to collaboration where someone wants to perform with you.”
“We also have a great team. Jordan Brookes has directed the show and David McIver is doing tech. It’s a big team effort and it helps with confidence.”
Ahead of the show, the pair have released a video of ‘Quicksand’, an incredibly catchy ear-worm of a song that spirals into a visual odyssey that highlights the imagination of the show and gives a taste of what’s in store. “It’s important to have big ambition” says Eddy. “We’re so excited to take on Soho Theatre”. Together, who knows what else is in store, we’re in for one hell of a ride. Yee-haw!
Crizards: Cowboys comes to Soho Theatre, London, 26-28th January 2023 at 10:15pm. Tickets from £15. Book here https://sohotheatre.com/shows/crizards/
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