What is your show about?
It’s about happiness and friendship. It’s also about pandas, robots and time travel, but they’re less obviously about happiness and friendship than answering ‘happiness and friendship’.
What is your favourite part of creating a new show?
Nothing fuels creativity like a deadline. Or Creativity fuel©, a new fragrance by Harry and Chris (we don’t have a fragrance (but we do have a show (The Harry and Chris Show 2 (at the Cask Room in the Mash House, 2:20pm every day)))).
Since the last show we’ve moved in together so the writing has been quite spontaneous. We’ve both done a lot of solo stuff so it’s been fun to work on this together. Almost every song comes from a place of sharing something that’s made us laugh and building from there, which can only be a healthy thing.
….. And the worst?
It goes from a terrifying panic that you’ll never think of enough stuff to fill an hour, to a point in time (two weeks ago) when you realise your song about time travel is about 8 minutes long (without the section when we go back in time to repeat bits). Also yesterday we started working on a Beyoncé-Tellytubbies mashup that is probably the greatest thing ever written so it feels cruel to not include it, but what do you take out?
How did you start off in comedy, and did you always want to be a comedian?
We’ve not actually started yet, but thanks. We were in the Spoken Word section last year and people thought it was surprisingly funny, so we’re making our comedy debut with the Harry and Chris Show 2 (and people will think it’s surprisingly speaking words) Chris told our new neighbours that we we’re professional comedians and they didn’t question it so i guess thats when it became real, but then they told us they run the worlds second-largest online penis pump distribution service, so it’s hard to know what to believe.
You’re heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Are you excited or nervous?
We’re pretty excited but we know how much work it is throughout the month after last year’s show. We play a lot of feature slots and other little gigs around the city to promote our show – last year we managed 45 performances throughout August, which we were pretty proud of, so we mention it in social media posts, drinks parties and prestigious Q and A’s for London Economic.
How do London audiences differ to other towns?
There is slightly more pollution in their lungs, which comes out when they laugh and forms a kind of comedy-death-mist© (new fragrance coming soon), which has become a hallmark of our shows.
Do you have a favorite place to go when in London?
There’s a great monthly night in Southwark called Joyride, which features a poet and a comedian every month, with a live house band and great charismatic hosts called Harry and Chris. There’s one more before the fringe (12th July), then it’s back in September.
What’s the worst heckle you have ever received?
We don’t get many heckles, either because of our intimidating masculinity on stage or because the word may have got out that interruptions during our shows make us cry.
… And what’s your best heckler put down?
Chris used to be a primary school teacher and one was challenged to a rap battle by a year 5 kid called Brian. He dropped the line ‘Brian, I could beat you without even tryin’, which won the battle and made Brian cry. Is that a heckler put down?
Describe your show in 5 words.
Flipping phenomenal fun featuring friends
Harry & Chris perform their monthly show Joyride at the Platform Southwark, with a special Joyride at the Leicester Square Theatre on 13th December following their return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with The Harry & Chris Show 2 at Just The Tonic, The Cask Room from 3rd -27th Aug at 2:20pm ahead of a nationwide tour from 25th October – 30th December. More info and tickets are available at www.harryandchris.com