CityLife

Lady Garden set to bloom on comedy scene

INSTITUTE DATE: Lady Garden

NUDITY: it’s a state of being that Manchester comedy troupe Lady Garden warn about in their adverts, but mention it in their company and they all start giggling.

Ask who pushed hardest for a bare sketch and all eyes go one way – onto Camille Ucan, who blushes bashfully in the corner Odder Bar when we meet, fumbling for an explanation.

“I did not!” she hollers as Jessica Knappett and Beattie Edmondson nod knowingly in my direction. “It wasn’t proper nudity…”

A healthy sense of playfulness among the six girls that make up Lady Garden is the troupe’s strongest dynamic. It means the sextet has, just over a year on from its inception, settled into writing scenes for each other and returned triumphant from their first stint at Edinburgh.

They never imagined they would make such swift progress when they got together at Manchester University, where they were studying for degrees in drama.

Camille, along with fourth member Eleanor Thom, got the ball rolling by putting on shows around the city, including some at the Comedy Store, with around 20 other students – then, male and female.

“The girls in particular were really keen – we all liked doing comedy,” says Jessica, taking up the story.

“By the second show, some of us were writing together. It was Eleanor who said how amazing it would be to go to Edinburgh.”

Beattie continues: “We left out little questionnaires on the chairs at the early gigs with tick boxes for ‘funny’, ‘not funny’ and ‘funny for the wrong reasons’,” she laughs.

“I think we definitely didn’t imagine much to come out of Edinburgh.”

Narrowed down to a six piece – completed by Hannah Dodd and Rose Johnson – Lady Garden bonded over Julia Davis (Nighty Night), Ruth Jones (Gavin & Stacey) and Mrs Barbara Nice.

An interest in the more absurd side of comedy led to some pretty interesting characters: beat-boxing bridesmaids, cossie-wearing newsreaders, tasteless charity workers, pier-end singing groups and xenophobic travel agents.

The way the public warmed to them even surprised the girls; that first Edinburgh show wildly outstripped Lady Garden’s expectations, garnering them four star reviews.

“We were prepared for audiences of three,” remembers Camille, who had turned down a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA to focus on Lady Garden.

Jessica continues: “Because there’s six of us, we need quite a big stage, and the venues with big stages have big audiences.

“So we were put on at the Gilded Balloon, a venue that holds 150 people, thinking, ‘How are we going to fill this?’. And we did, a couple of times.” 

It’s fair to say that Beattie – the daughter of Adrian Edmondson and Jennifer Saunders – draws added interest. But she’s decided not to talk about it; her movement into comedy has been an independent decision.

Trajectory

Her trajectory, though, could go the same way as Ade and Jennifer.

The girls are already in talks with a major broadcaster about a development deal for the sketch show, with a view to taking it to radio and television, and are busy putting together their second Edinburgh performance; this time, with the backing of premiere comedy agent Mick Perrin.

They also made the finals of last year’s annual Hackney Empire comedy show and recently scooped the New Act gong at the LOL! Comedy Awards. Soon they’re heading back to London for the quarter finals of the Laughing Horse Comedy awards and are focusing on reaching the finals.

This Saturday they’re looking to impress on home turf, when they perform their first ever full live show in Manchester at the Dancehouse Theatre. It’s an exciting prospect, especially at a venue in the shadow of the BBC.

“We want to do this as a career now,” confirms Camille. “We want it to have longevity. There’s so many things we come up with that you can’t do live, but that would be really fun to do on screen.

“It would be nice to do radio, too. That really helps with your writing because you can’t rely on the physical performance.

“But we also want to keep playing live because you get that instant awareness of whether things work. Different people react to different things and it’s good for us to learn from that.”

Jessica and Beattie have the perfect example. “We’ve written a sketch about the travesty that is tragic biographies – people capitalising on other people’s misfortune,” Jessica begins, before Beattie jumps in enthusiastically.

“I like doing that one because you get a vociferous and volatile reaction. You never know what’s going to happen,” she adds. “When we were doing it in Islington, someone just went, ‘Noooooo!’ And after the punchline, everyone went, ‘Oooooo’.”

“At least it gets a reaction,” laughs Jessica. “We do love it when people join in.”

Lady Garden are at The Deaf Institute on Sunday, April 26.