If you’re new, welcome! I’m Caitlin, a writer and comedian. This newsletter is a place where I share my favorite content from across the world, plus insight from comedy’s rising stars. Think of it as a toolkit to help you start the week laughing. 💜
Hey fam,
As I work on shifting my brain from “pandemic survival mode” to “normal person mode” I’ve made it my summer mission to get out and socialize more. And the message I’ve been hearing on all my social outings is the same: Stranger Things season 4 is good. Unfortunately for me, my own taste isn’t suited for anything remotely suspenseful, thrilling, mysterious, or creepy. Adventure? Sure. Rom coms? Love ‘em. Family films about a father fish who travels the ocean to find his lost son, with beautiful animation and a great soundtrack? I’m getting off topic.
The point is, on the spectrum of horror to comedy, I very much fall on the side of the latter: I want to be comforted. In today’s world, I’ve lost any shred of snobbery I may have had against fluffy, escapist shows–I subsist on them (when does the next season of Bridgerton come out again?). Right now, I’m toggling between Rutherford Falls and Love Island: Australia (wayyyy more drama than the UK version). But as my interview with today’s guest illustrates, horror and comedy may have more in common than we think.
So my question to you this week is: What genre do you prefer? What are your go-to TV shows when you just need to turn your brain off for a little bit? Leave me a comment with your recs!
🔎 Comedians To Watch: Liam Webber
This week's spotlight is Nottingham-based improvisor, writer, and all-around talent Liam Webber. He sat down with me for an incredibly rich interview that was full of insights I can’t wait to share, but today I wanted to focus one piece: his interactive show CRONE, which has been described as…well, I’ll let the official description speak for itself 😉
Since the dawn of time, human beings have ventured into deep, dark, woods to gain supernatural knowledge and treasures from the creatures within. Tonight, it’s you who enters the witch’s lair in a horrifying and hilarious interactive horror comedy show. Spells will be cast, rituals performed, and the ether will be read. Completely interactive and different every night, bring the CRONE a “gift*” to have your fortune told on the spot. But be warned: such knowledge comes at a price… Give nothing you want returning.
“Excitingly peculiar” – The Scotsman
“Unpredictable and inimitable” – LeftLion Magazine
“Visibly Unwell” – Notts Comedy Review
*A “gift” could be a trinket/object/item of no real monetary value. Anything from a rusty amulet, to a crumpled Wilco receipt… Even a potato will do. You will not get the item back. It may get destroyed. Who knows what she’ll do.
Caitlin: Tell me about CRONE! Especially the mask [you wear during the show].
Liam: The great thing about the mask is the effect of the journey the audience goes through with it. They see it and they're like, ‘This is a mask, it's fucking weird’ like, ‘What's going on,’ but after you have it on for long enough, and that's all they see, that does start to become your face [to them]. And you get these like patterns, and then you draw attention to it through the show. And actually you can spike up where the audience gets pulled out of that. Like, they're almost like in the ‘Oh yeah,’ they believe that this is a–they don't believe that this is a real thing, but they stop seeing it as like a separation, which is quite a fun thing to play with.
How do you do that? How do you pull them out [of that reality] and put them back in?
It's comments. It's throwaway lines and stuff like that. So obviously the eyes are huge and unblinking and so drawing attention to that. The show itself is very interactive; at the heart of it she's a witch and the audience get their fortunes told and in the longer shows we cast spells together and do some rituals as well. But in shorter shows, it's literally just like, come on, let's do some readings. Let's see where people are at. So it's very interactive. And so you get the classic thing of people in the audience being, you know, they'll talk to each other. And so when you catch people, you can make jokes about like, do you think your eyes [look] like this? You know, all that.
So the mask came before the concept for the show.
Yeah. So one of the masks that I originally made a while ago was a similar mask. It was much less defined and less good. I think I'm quite proud of her [Crone’s] face. And I did do a one-off show a friend of mine was doing, she was like, I'm gonna do–like, I hadn't done standup for a couple years–and she was actually running a stage at the Nottingham comedy festival in 2018 or whenever and was like, ‘Come and do it.’ And I was like, ‘I will, but you have to not tell anyone that I'm coming and I won't tell you what I'm gonna do.’
Oh man.
And she was like, okay, fine. And so I turned up whenever my set was, dressed with this mask and more, it was just like a big wig and a very long stick. And I was just asking people if they'd seen my grandson for about 10 minutes and then left. That was the set. And so I think that kind of lodged in the back of my head as like, this is a fun thing, but it wasn't a full character. It was just a stupid bit that I did. And it was like, ‘Oh, the effect you had on the audience while wearing the mask was quite fun.’
You make people jump, and you freak people out, but they also laugh. And you create an uneasy tension in the room, which makes it a very fun space to play with. So I think that basic concept was in the back of my head. And then we wrote this comedy horror film and we were like, oh, we like writing in this style; what can we do on stage? And I guess everything kinda lined up for it to happen again, if that makes sense.
So people have talked about Jordan Peele and his transition from comedy to horror, and about how they're similar because of the building tension and then releasing it. Do you feel that it’s a natural fit, or do you feel like there are differences when you're doing comedy-horror? Like, how are you balancing those elements?
First of all, I feel quite early in my journey with it, so by no means an expert on it. I think the tension you build when doing stuff that's horror-y and spooky–or just even if it's just weird and confusing–that tension you build with the audience is something that you can really play with. It adds an extra dimension to everything, and it adds multiple extra avenues and it makes, for me at least, it makes very simple, stupid jokes that we have within the show doubly more effective, because they’re so much more surprising coming out of the mouth of a hag creature. And you just have a greater level of expectations that you can play with with the audience, which is quite fun. And so the ability to sucker them both ways in terms of making them think you're gonna say something really spooky and actually tell a really stupid joke is quite an effective thing, but also making people think you're gonna just tell stupid jokes and then doing something legitimately spooky is also quite effective. I just find it a fun place to work in.
That's cool. So you have double the expectations to work with.
Yeah, exactly. And because you come in in full costume and dress, the audience have that slightly greater level of suspension of disbelief as well. Which we all have watching stand up, where everyone in the audience knows that this isn't the person's actual real experience in life. We know that they have artistic license with it and, and we allow ourselves to believe it's real. Like when you walk on stage as a witch, and you ask people to believe that's real, it's a slightly more theatrical vibe, you just set up a slightly different set of expectations, similar to improv when you're like, we all know that there's no set here. So when people pretend there's glasses, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. I'm willing to believe that this person's a polar bear because no one's in any kind of costume. Similar vibe to that, I guess, which just gives you greater avenues to explore from this stuff.
Do you usually bring props or do you do object work?
Props. Because the costume's real, it doesn't feel right to not have real stuff. So like we have like stupid bits, like, the beginning of the show, I’ll hobble towards the stage. If it's a raised stage, I struggle to get on stage as the Crone, so I get someone to help me and then I offer the magic beans as a payment. They inevitably say yes. And then I get out like a small plastic bag of Heinz baked beans and give them [it].
Like a Ziploc.
Like a Ziploc, wet beans inside, that's the level. [Laughs]
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Follow @Liam_Webber on Twitter, @liamjwebber on Instagram, or check him out at any of the following shows!
‘RHIIF Pre-Party - Free Improv Comedy Show!’ July 16 at Nonsuch Studios
‘CRONE’ August 19-21at the Camden Fringe
‘CRONE’ August 24-28 at the Edinburgh Fringe (check out Liam’s tips for the fringe in this interview!)
🎨What I’ve Been Working On
Summer’s in full swing, and this lifeguard needs you to remember one rule: Stay out of the lake! ☀️