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Interviews - Laura Lawson
Laura Lawson tells us what it's like to produce a sketch show with children that's like Bugsy Malone, but better...
Ok, first off, a very broad question, how did you get into comedy?
Oh God... years ago. Just because I used to go to Canal Café Theatre and see all sorts of double acts and it was something I just wanted to do desperately so I set up my own double act, doing it that way.
Was that with McCloud?Yeah, McCloud and Black. How do you know?
Us Channel 4 Comedy folk do our research you know...Oh my God!
And then you moved on to performing with someone called Tezcan... is that right?Yes! I'm very impressed with your research. It's very good.
So what made you give up performing for writing and directing?
I still do perform sketch comedy for kids. We've created this brand and this show and it's called Silly Billy Bum Breath. It's comedy for kids.
Where do you perform that?
We've been on tour with Phil McIntyre and we do the Edinburgh festival and we're always sort of going round the country performing it in all sorts of places. But yeah, it's brilliant. It's great because it's sort of interactive for the kids, so you get a lot of feedback from them.
So what do you prefer, the writing or the performing?
I love, absolutely love, the performing, but you know, I love it all really! I think if you just do one thing it can get a bit boring and to be able to do lots of different things is much more fun. And one inspires the other most of the time.
How did you set out about getting School of Comedy commissioned for Channel 4 Comedy Lab?
I'd been performing in Edinburgh and doing all sorts of bit parts for ages and I fell into teaching just to make some extra money. I was teaching at a great school where it's really bohemian and it's all about the kids.
I was teaching drama though I have no qualifications - never taught in my life - and I started sort of practising my scripts and sketches with them and then got them to do improvisation and all sorts of stuff. And they were amazing and I thought "Oh my God, they're much better than I am." Really jealous, bloody hell!
And then I said to the school: "Can I do a comedy sketch show?" And they were like: "Yeah, sure." So I just basically got together a group of kids, about 20, and put on a sort of Footlights-type review show. But it didn't have any swearing because obviously it was a school production. It went down so well, so they were like: "Can you do one next year?" So I did one the following year and I started gently eeking out the amazing kids that had a real sort of talent for adult comedy and observation and then they got them to do some shows at the Canal Café Theatre and they went down really, really well.
I got loads of adult comedian friends of mine who are in the industry to donate sketches so they could do proper, more sophisticated adult stuff. And they were amazing. Then I said to the school: "I'm going to take them to Edinburgh." And they were absolutely fine and they did a really adult show and I nearly got the sack as a result!
What did the school think of that?
They were furious; they nearly had a heart attack! I don't know what possessed me. I invited the 72-year-old principal to come and have a look at it at Canal Café Theatre and he said he nearly had a heart attack! Because it was pure filth, I mean really naughty...
You forget, because they're children and because they're amazing and you work with them so closely and you work with them like you would work with adults, you do forget that people will sometimes find it a bit shocking or a bit inappropriate.
I bet the kids love you, you're just telling them to say these rude words!
I know, they do, I mean, they're like my mates. I work with them, so they are like friends and you know when I had a baby they were the first ones to come over and the first ones to know.
They were like "Oh, another part of the team!" They are really good mates now. Well, we've been together so long. So, yeah, I took them to Edinburgh and off the back of Edinburgh they had loads of attention.
So, did Channel 4 then approach you?
Yeah, we had loads of sort of interest really, but we went with the Comedy Lab because we were ready to do something now.
I think a lot of people are very nervous because it's kids, unless you see it it's quite hard to explain. There were a lot of people offering sort of really null and void things, like, "Yeah, we'll offer you a sort of development period," and we were like, "Yeah we've been developing it for four years, we're really ready to go now actually."
Plus they're kids, they're only going to get bigger and their voices are going to break, so Channel 4 were brilliant because they were like, "Come and have a Comedy Lab then," so we knew we had something to work towards and a final product which is great. The Comedy Lab is brilliant, I'm really pleased with it.
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