Latest news with #NataliePalamides
Scotsman
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Lady Magic Natalie Palamides Spiegelworld
The anarchic American comedian tells Fiona Shepherd about directing an ensemble of clowning players for the first time, and setting her sights on Las Vegas. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... There is a man lying on the floor in dire need of CPR. Fortunately, there are five people standing around him eager to help. Unfortunately, they have no idea what they are doing. Fortunately/unfortunately, they are creative clowns ready to try anything to resuscitate the victim. Their rendition of CPR soundtrack Staying Alive is a triumph but it looks like no orifice is safe. Adding to the noise and confusion, there is a woman standing at a slight distance shouting encouragement through a megaphone. It's Fringe favourite Natalie Palamides, known for anarchic character comedies such as Laid, Nate and WEER. I almost didn't recognize her with her own clothes on. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Spiegelworld's new circus show Lady Magic, written and directed by comedian Natalie Palamides | Spiegelworld We are in a rehearsal room in Craigmillar where Palamides is devising a new work, Lady Magic, with fellow Fringe favourites Spiegelworld, the entirely mischievous contemporary circus company who have helmed the Atomic Saloon Show and Vegas Nocturne on previous visits to Edinburgh. The plan is to present Lady Magic as a work-in-progress which really will progress across the course of the Fringe. Palamides is directing but will be in the audience every night, possibly intervening as she sees fit. The scene before us becomes clearer. The guy on the floor is big shot magician Chris Volcano - any resemblance to overly pompous Las Vegas-style show magicians entirely intentional. One of his high concept high drama set-pieces was gone awry. Don't you hate it when that happens? His five wouldbe rescuers are magician's assistants. It looks like it's up to them to save the day, the show, maybe even the world. Who knows at this stage? Anything could happen. Palamides is actively encouraging play. Her co-creators are all skilled clowns in their own right. Even with minimal props and costumes, there is a sense of marshalled chaos to proceedings. If Palamides' previous Fringe outings are any barometer, things are going to get a lot messier. The Pittsburgh-born, LA-based comedian has already delighted and confused Fringe audiences with her debut Laid, an oddball take on fertility for which she won the Edinburgh Comedy Best Newcomer Award, Nate, her absurd yet empathetic cross-dressing interrogation of masculinity, later filmed as a Netflix special, and last year's late night rom-com romp WEER in which she played both protagonists at the same time. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lady Magic, however, is her first experience of directing an ensemble of players. 'They all have their own ways of getting themselves into trouble that feels a bit different than the way that I perform,' she says during a break in rehearsals, 'but I think it will still have that same anarchic chaotic energy because every person in that group has their own clown spirit.' Kelly McGaughan is one of two actors who will alternate the role of Chris Volcano, who she describes as a 'stereotypical machismo over the top in your face show-off magician.' She is new to the Spiegelworld family but already has Fringe form with her solo show Catholic Guilt and is old friends with Palamides from their days studying at Indiana University of Pennsylvania - or 'I Usually Party' as it is nicknamed. 'It was known for being a huge party school,' she says. Sounds like useful training for the Fringe which she hails as 'the Olympics for artists.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lady Magic, the new circus show by Spiegelworld. | Spiegelworld Palamides is equally enamoured with the Fringe as training ground. 'You get a really diverse audience here,' she says. 'You get feedback every day, switch out scenes, refine different tricks or gags. It's nice to have the opportunity to put up your changes night after night in front of an audience and test if they're working in real time.' As is the Palamides way, audience members may (or may not) be invited to participate in the show. Budding magician's assistants at the ready. The clown assistants have all learned a couple of magic tricks as part of the development process and Lady Magic will also feature two genuine magicians showcasing their skills. Comedian Geoff Sobelle and magician Steve Cuiffo are also on board as consultants, having inspired Palamides with their comedy magic show Elephant Room. 'I'm delighted by magic,' she says. 'I try to incorporate magical elements into my shows with surprising gags. I do reveals that some people say feel like magic tricks. Basically there are only five different magic tricks that people spice up in different ways and put their own spin on so that was demystifying for me and made magic a lot less intimidating. After getting to peek behind the curtain, it just comes down to skill.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Clowning is very specific, and a lot of the jokes are mathematical but if you do happen to mess up you can always save it with a laugh or by embracing whatever the failure is. If you have a failure in magic, the trick is just ruined and there's no saving it. But magic is probably something that's easier to learn with time. It's less easy to learn clown with practice. Most clowns have this natural instinct.' Palamides has that instinct in spades, exercised since her days as the class clown. 'I remember telling my aunt that I wanted to be a comedian when I grew up and she said 'don't you want to do a job that helps people?' And I said 'laughing helps people'. From an early age I enjoyed making people laugh. It feels good to bring someone a sense of relief.' In addition to her stage shows, Palamides has also parlayed her character skills into voiceover work for adverts and animation, including playing Buttercup in the reboot of cartoon superhero series The Powerpuff Girls. The next frontier is Las Vegas, which is where Lady Magic is heading after its Fringe run. Will Vegas laugh at its own culture of super-serious daredevil magicians portrayed with gender-fluid casting? Palamides isn't sure. 'I'm not experienced in the Vegas landscape but I know how to make a fun show for the Fringe, so that's where my sights are set now.'
The Guardian
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It's Fleabag's home – the audience is unshockable': Phoebe Waller-Bridge and more on 25 years of Soho theatre
A fixture on London's Dean Street for 25 years, Soho theatre has hatched plays that won Oliviers, shows that earned the Edinburgh comedy award and ideas that became TV hits. On any night, across its upstairs studio theatre, its main house and basement cabaret bar, you'll find plays from new writers, experimentations in clowning, drag performance, standup comedy, or a hybrid of them all. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. In those rooms, I've watched American clown Natalie Palamides giving such a spirited performance that she vomited on stage, dancer and comedian Adrienne Truscott challenging rape jokes, and performance artist Kim Noble pushing audiences beyond comfort. I've sung along to ballads with sketch group Daphne, and folk songs with Sh!t Theatre. Soho does all this by running a 'festival programme', with multiple shows per room, per night. 'It allows us to take risks,' says executive director and CEO Mark Godfrey. 'You can say now, 25 years on, we had the first play from Tanika Gupta, from Moira Buffini, early work from Chris Chibnall.' And perhaps most famously of all, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who first performed her one-woman show – and later hit TV series – Fleabag at the venue. 'Soho theatre has a genuinely experimental, risk-taking attitude,' Waller-Bridge says. 'It's one of the only theatres that consistently puts on provocative work from lesser-known writers and performers and encourages them to be original. I've seen some of the best work of my life in those spaces.' Waller-Bridge began her artistic relationship with Soho in 2009, in finance-industry satire Roaring Trade: 'I remember throttling Andrew Scott with a tie as the lights went up every night, which was the beginning of one of the most happy collaborations of my life.' With colleagues in her DryWrite theatre company, Francesca Moody and Vicky Jones, she became an associate artist at the theatre, commissioning Adolescence writer Jack Thorne's play Mydidae in 2012. Fleabag first appeared in Soho's upstairs room. Being offered space to preview 'was no small thing', Waller-Bridge says. It returned, post-Edinburgh, and Soho supported its West End transfer. 'It's Fleabag's home. The Soho theatre audience is so up for it … unshockable, game for anything, fun-loving and curious.' Now that game-for-anything is going to get a lot larger. As the theatre celebrates its 25th anniversary, it's also starting a new chapter – the opening of 1,000-seater Soho Theatre Walthamstow, in north-east London, where it will entertain its biggest audiences yet. It's been a long journey. Soho theatre on the West End's Dean Street opened in 2000, but the company was founded as the Soho Theatre Company in the late 60s by theatre directors Verity Bargate (namesake of Soho's new writing award) and Fred Proud. It became Soho Poly when it moved into a university basement in 1972. Deliberately free from 'the trappings of bourgeois theatre architecture', it was a pioneer of lunchtime theatre, allowing performances to 'reach a different sort of audience', write Matthew Morrison and Guy Osborne from the University of Westminster. That basement showcased future stars such as Bob Hoskins, Harriet Walter, Hanif Kureishi and Caryl Churchill. 'It was about new plays and new writing, that fringe explosion of the 70s,' says Godfrey, who's been with the company since 1990, its final year as Soho Poly. By the mid-90s, after a stint at Cockpit theatre, Soho theatre was homeless. Fortuitously, the national lottery was emerging. With director Abigail Morris and producer David Aukin, Godfrey found a building on Dean Street that had formerly housed a synagogue. The vision was influenced by the diversity and collective spirit of the south London theatre Ovalhouse, the ICA's punk aesthetics and experimental performances, the fun of comedy clubs. Rather than one artistic director, Soho has 'a plurality of voices', Godfrey says. 'They love the work,' says performance artist Bryony Kimmings. 'In the curating of their programme, they're also artists.' Those voices now include creative associate Pooja Sivaraman and head of comedy Steve Lock. Comedy is now a core part of Soho's identity. In 2000, short-ish plays meant Dean Street's stages were free by 9pm, so mixed-bill comedy, then eventually solo standup shows, filled the gap. Lock started working on the box office in 2001, but soon moved into comedy programming, scouting experimental shows at the fringe, and programming things crowds couldn't find at comedy clubs. 'It was about full-length shows, which intrinsically felt more theatrical. We started to feel like the natural home for people's one-hour shows in the early 2000s, and it's snowballed from then.' Soho welcomed American drag performers such as Kiki and Herb, plus acts such as Hannah Gadsby before their rise to fame. For the first 10 years at Dean Street, the basement was an Indian restaurant, which also ran the ground-floor bar. In 2011, it became Soho Theatre Bar, and the basement became a bespoke cabaret space. They decided 'to give equal importance to theatre, comedy and cabaret', Godfrey says. Lock points to artists like Kimmings and Noble, who could never be squeezed into one box. Temi Wilkey, whose recent show Main Character Energy blended performance styles, says: 'It's an extraordinary space for people whose work is genre-pushing.' Kimmings says: 'They never say no. They trust you to be creative.' When I ask artists what sets Soho theatre apart from other institutions, many say community. Associate artists used to be given membership to the Groucho Club, but when the theatre started running the bar, this was swapped for bar discounts instead. The idea was to build a club-like atmosphere right there. When you enter Dean Street's bar now, chances are you'll recognise someone – it's a 'snipers' alley' per one TV producer's analogy; you're always in the eyeline of an artist, writer, agent. For punters, this means the chance to spot a star. Social media was abuzz in 2023 when Florence Pugh, Andrew Garfield and Phoebe Bridgers were snapped after attending Kate Berlant's show. It helps that many of the artists connected to Soho arrived as fledging talent, such as Waller-Bridge, growing within the theatre, before achieving mainstream status. Kimmings had never visited Soho theatre until a meeting to discuss the transfer of her 2010 fringe show Sex Idiot, a tale of chlamydia and reappraising relationships. She's spoken in the past about the snobbery and classism that can come with traditional theatre. Soho is 'not like that at all', she says. Meeting Lock and dramaturg Nina Steiger: 'The two of them felt like family, like home, immediately,' Kimmings says. They earned her respect. '[Steiger] taught me how to use the principles of narratives, that was so exciting to me,' she says, and she saw Lock's passion for new work. When she wanted to make another show – an exploration of alcohol and creativity – they gave her space to develop and she wanted their input. Kimmings now teaches young artists and says most dream of staging their work at Soho. 'It's managed to establish a mark of quality and experimentalism. It feels like if you're there, you're original, you're good quality.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Cheerleading new artists is vital, says Waller-Bridge, especially in the current funding climate: 'Writers need places to take risks, and to have the support of a theatre who back you as an individual rather than just a single project means you can push the boundaries.' Without that, 'we'll just end up with more and more generic work because people need to hedge their bets'. Poppy Jay, of the podcast Brown Girls Do It Too, used to walk past Soho theatre on the way to Topshop in nearby Oxford Circus. It seemed like 'a cool place', but not for her. 'Brown women, south Asian people, the theatre space doesn't really feel like ours,' she says. Jay and co-host Rubina Pabani were invited to create a stage version of their podcast, which they developed at Dean Street into a theatrical mix of jokes, sketches and discussion of sexuality and cultural expectations. Despite initial fears of not belonging, she says the theatre is 'embracing of talent and people from other backgrounds. It's completely different to how I always imagined theatre spaces to be.' While many artists are scouted, Soho theatre also runs 'labs' to coach new talent. Comedians Jack Rooke and Olga Koch started in the comedy programme and playwright Ryan Calais Cameron in the writers' lab. Rooke, creator of sitcom Big Boys, remembers the comedy lab as 'the most valuable education I've ever had. One day would be being taught how to apply to go to the fringe by Richard Gadd, the next week we'd have a masterclass with the DryWrite team,' he says. 'It taught me to be OK with putting darkness and silliness next to each other.' It led to the live show Good Grief, about the aftermath of his dad's death, and two subsequent shows, the seeds of Big Boys. He commemorated Soho's role in his career by naming a Big Boys' character after staff member Jules Haworth, who helped him secure a comedy lab bursary. Soho got TV commissioners in the door, Rooke says: 'It's always been good at taking a risk on new talent and not just following where the buzz is.' In the upstairs studio, Sivaraman describes the importance of the labs while in the background performer Shafeeq Shajahan rehearses The Bollywood Guide to Revenge. 'Shafeeq started on the writers' lab and drag lab, and this show was programmed as part of Soho Rising [a new talent festival] last year. Now it has a one-week run.' With the opening of Soho Theatre Walthamstow, there's potential to reach a larger stage. Palamides, who's worked with Soho since her debut show Laid, will be the first to grace the beautifully restored theatre with Weer, her absurd 90s romcom that earned plaudits in Edinburgh. Jay will perform Brown Girls Do It Too later in the year – as a Walthamstow local, she saw films in the venue as a teen, so it feels like a full-circle moment. In the autumn, Kimmings will present Bog Witch, about rediscovering nature, her first show in more than five years: 'I don't think I could've done it with anybody else.' It's been nearly 15 years since Godfrey joined the fight to transform the Walthamstow venue, which nearly became a church, into a functioning theatre. With the launch imminent, he reflects on Soho's origins. 'One of the challenges is: how do you become a bigger organisation and still keep that queer-punk, radical-fringe core identity?' They hope that 'plurality of voices' in the theatre's artistic team and the relationships they've built with artists over the years will preserve the Soho spirit. In the early days of Dean Street, the company was 'under the radar', says Godfrey, the pressure was off and creativity flowed. Will it be easier to fill an auditorium now on the cachet of Soho's past successes, or will people expect mainstream acts from a larger venue? Alongside the company's usual genre-melding works, tickets are already on sale for a pantomime and shows from Jon Ronson and Adam Kay. 'We believe it will work, but it will be nice when you actually see it.' During the redevelopment, there was some criticism over the loss of local LGBTQ+ venue The Victoria, which adjoins the site, but there has also been local outreach work. There are new labs programmes for Walthamstow locals, and many of the staff, including Godfrey and Soho Theatre Walthamstow co-chair Alessandro Babalola are locals themselves. Growing affection and audiences among residents, as well as persuading others to make the journey out, will be crucial. Memories formed at Dean Street might hold lessons in how to retain the theatre's identity. Kimmings laughs as she recalls one night in the cabaret basement, when an audience member bit her leg and she ended her show dancing on stage next to Juliette Lewis. To her, Soho theatre is 'a place where you get to be free. A place where you can cast off your baggage and really belly laugh. That is so precious.' Soho Theatre Walthamstow opens on 2 May.
