Edinburgh's couple acts: the fringe duos starring together – and even getting married on stage

The Guardian

2 days ago

Some people blow their wedding budget in Las Vegas or on Venice's Grand Canal. But the actors and writers Linus Karp and Joseph Martin will be tying the knot at the Edinburgh fringe, walking down the aisle of the Pleasance Grand on Saturday. Tickets to attend are £12 a pop – and they hope to avoid getting star ratings.
'It's surprisingly affordable,' says Martin. 'We'd been looking at doing it in London and that was 'the first Tuesday of every month at 8.30am, only bookable three years in advance'. Our work is loud, queer and joyous, and this felt like a good way to represent that side of us. It's silly and ridiculous, but it feels right.' There will be a dramatic entrance and special-guest speeches, but their vows will be real. 'We wouldn't ever do anything for attention,' deadpans Karp.
It will, however, do no harm in raising the profile of their other show, The Fit Prince (Who Gets Switched on the Square in the Frosty Castle the Night Before [Insert Public Holiday Here]). The show grew out of their binge-watching of romantic films during a bout of Covid and, like their previous tributes to Princess Diana and Gwyneth Paltrow, is served with a mixture of camp irony and genuine affection.
'Audiences can tell when you've done something with derision,' says Martin. 'We love the films on which it is based, the good and the bad – and, boy, are there many bad ones!'
As the big day approaches, how are the pre-wedding jitters? 'This is the first time we have debuted a show in Edinburgh so maybe this level of stress will change things,' says Karp. 'We'll see if halfway through the fringe we still want to get married.'
A double helping of married couples are responsible for the aerial dance show Imago. Created by two former Cirque du Soleil stars, this 'epic tragic love story' is now entrusted to another husband and wife. And 'entrusted' is the right word: nothing symbolises dependency more powerfully than an acrobat holding on to an airborne partner. Using apparatus devised to keep the performers in the air for unusually long periods, this is a show requiring high levels of trust.
'It is emotionally and physically demanding and we know we can't let our partner down on stage,' says Gabrielle Martin, who developed Imago with Jeremiah Hughes before she retired from the stage. 'The truth is that gravity is trying to pull us apart. The chemistry and the struggle are real.'
Hughes describes a three-minute sequence in which he would be suspended in the air with his wife hanging on his foot: 'At no point was I thinking, 'This feels hard on my body, we should have a break.' It was: 'She's 15 feet off the ground. There's no question of stopping.''
The couple are now directing Eowynn and Isak Enquist in Imago, which has the dreamlike aesthetic of dance, rather than the shock and awe of circus. 'It's a cathartic journey for the audience,' says Martin. 'And it is for Eowynn and Isak on stage.'
For Martin and Hughes, working and playing together – not to mention bringing up a two year old – is a natural state of affairs. 'So many of our production conversations are pillow talk,' says Hughes. 'This work has brought a lot of beauty into our life and we've truly enjoyed placing it on to these new performers, who have also had to learn how to communicate when they're exhausted and in the air. I don't know that it could have happened with two that were not in an intimate relationship.'
Martin adds: 'We know how intense Edinburgh is, having been there once before – I remember crying my way home every other night.' How are the Enquists holding up? 'People said it was going to be a whirlwind experience: we now understand what they meant. We have been training for Imago for two years – opening in Edinburgh has been vulnerable and exhilarating.'
A honeymoon comedy set in the aftermath of a calamitous wedding is the work of another double helping of married couples. Created by Los Angeles musical duo Marnina Schon and Micah O'Konis, both fringe newcomers, Couplet: Honey Honey Moon Moon is directed by comedians Chris Grace and Eric Michaud, both Edinburgh old-hands.
Revelling in their own cantankerousness, Grace and Michaud have been energised by the positive vibes of the younger couple. 'Marnina and Micah get along way better than Eric and I do,' laughs Grace.
'They're much better fighters, I guess,' says Michaud. 'Or they're conflict avoidant,' says Grace. 'It's an ongoing debate about whether we want to model our relationship on theirs or they want to model theirs on ours.'
Schon and O'Konis are classically trained musicians who tell the story of their relationship from inception to marriage through songs such as Our Wedding Venue Burned Down. The distinctive nature of their genderqueer relationship is summed up in People Think We're Straight.
'With Eric and me, it's pretty obvious if we're holding hands that we're gay,' says Grace. 'Marnina and Micah present as heteronormative. We were both at their wedding earlier this year and when family members gave speeches they used correct pronouns, which was a big milestone for them.'
The show sees the funny side of all this. 'They quote a line from a New York Times interview that says there's nothing they can't sing and laugh their way through – and that's really true,' says Michaud. 'Rather than fighting, they'll sit down and write a song. They'll harness those feelings and create something out of it.'
'They're probably like us in that it's almost easier to create an hour-long show to express how you feel than say it directly,' says Grace, who is also creating a new standup show every afternoon in 27 Hours. 'There's a heightened comedic sensibility to their show but there's not a ton of artifice.'
Michaud agrees: 'They seem unshakable as a couple, which is inspiring.' Grace quips back: 'They have a joie de vivre that, as middle-aged men, we do not share.'
If you want to know what love at first sight feels like, just ask Abigail and Shaun Bengson. Eighteen years ago, Abigail was invited to join Shaun's band. Straight away they wrote a song. Three weeks later they were married.
'Since then it's all been making art together,' says Shaun, arriving in Edinburgh from the US with his parents and two children. Having met through music, they find it impossible to distinguish between their creative life and any other aspect of their relationship. 'We were fired in the kiln of being musicians,' says Abigail. 'We go to each other for solace.'
Their show, Ohio, a music-theatre hybrid, is autobiographical in a way that both find exposing. It is about Shaun's inherited degenerative hearing loss, their movement away from religion and their coming to terms with mortality. They call it an 'ecstatic grief concert'.
'The stage is where I feel the most unmasked and the most free,' says Abigail. 'It is a vulnerable place to be but it's also a place of power. Shaun and I are both disabled and our situations are degenerative. We've thought of it as a bummer, but mostly because it's new and scary. We're making this to get less afraid and more free about what it means to be a person moving into disability.'
A few days in, the couple have tackled their fringe debut with characteristic enthusiasm. 'It's been gorgeous,' they say. 'We're entering the review maelstrom so we're holding each other close: as autistic folks we're used to being misunderstood and underestimated. What matters most is what happens in the room, which is when we feel most joyful.'
They met through comedy, working together on student sketches at the University of Bristol, and when lockdown put everything on hold, Ada Player and Bron Waugh simply carried on improvising. With a relationship like that, it is little wonder that their debut fringe show, Ada and Bron: The Origin of Love, is a compendium of offbeat skits on a theme of intimacy.
'They're characters we've been improvising since university and they all ended up being doomed romances and weird couples,' says Waugh, whose work on television with Player includes the short Channel 4 comedy Peaked. 'We've taken tiny nuggets of our relationship, timesed them by 10 and made them into these cartoonish love stories,' says Player.
How is their work/life balance? 'You can make rules about not talking about the show in the evening, but sometimes it's fun to do that,' she says. 'It's a constant back and forth. But it has made our stress around the show low, because if it's our whole life, everything has to feel fun, light and energetic.'
Waugh looks uncertain about that, but stressful or not, working from home has given The Origin of Love its distinctive quality. 'We made the show in this closed space,' says Player. And even the costumes reflect the lockdown theme. 'The whole show is done in our pants and vest tops,' says Waugh, although pianist Ed Lyness will be in a tux. 'That would normally be something we'd be shy about, but because we've made the show in our bedrooms, we've not thought about what it would feel like in front of people.'
Are there any tensions between Ada and Bron after their opening gigs? 'Our show is at 11pm so resetting our body clocks means we've been too exhausted to talk to each other, let alone fight,' says Waugh. 'Once we have settled into a rhythm we will have more energy to have a proper domestic,' says Player. 'Honestly, can't wait!'
The Fit Prince … is at Pleasance Courtyard until 25 August. Awkward Prods Get Married (But for Real) is at Pleasance Courtyard on 16 August. Imago is at Assembly Roxy until 24 August. Couplet: Honey Honey Moon Moon is at Assembly Rooms until 24 August. Ohio is at Assembly Roxy until 24 August. Ada and Bron: The Origin of Love is at Pleasance Courtyard until 24 August.