Good Punch is bringing The Main Yvette to EdFringe this year. Broadway Baby finds out more.
The Main Yvette is a satirical game show, with a glitzy host with a power complex and eight anxious contestants trying to muddle their way through the ridiculous tasks expected of them.
Tell us about your show
The Main Yvette is a contemporary performance created by Scotland based live art group Good Punch. Devised by the group, in collaboration with an all female cast, the show unpicks and ridicules mainstream stereotypes of femininity. The Main Yvette is a satirical game show, with a glitzy host with a power complex and eight anxious contestants trying to muddle their way through the ridiculous tasks expected of them. Good Punch’s debut Fringe show is about conformity, pleasing others and about the fear of failure, it is recognisably absurd and invites the viewer to laugh at the ridiculousness of human behaviour.
Why did you decide to take your show to Space UK this year?
Good Punch’s co-founders Rohanne Udall, Fiona Anderson and Kate Banks are Fringe veterans, having lived in Edinburgh for five years. They have acted and directed shows with Theatre Paradok, Edinburgh University’s Alternative Theatre Society, who have worked with the SpaceUK for a number of years. The girls therefore immediately thought of the SpaceUK venues when planning their first Good Punch fringe production. The venues have a great reputation and great central locations, Good Punch are very excited to be performing there this summer!
Why Edinburgh? What’s the attraction?
Rohanne, Fiona and Kate were Edinburgh Locals, having lived in the city for five years. They are now scattered across the UK, in Glasgow, London and Edinburgh and therefore it seems the perfect plan for showing the Main Yvette to come back to the place where the company met and lived. Also having experienced many Fringe festivals over the years, the Good Punch Girls know that it can be an excellent platform for getting your work out to wider audiences and for seeking critical feedback and acclaim.
How did you create your show?
The show was written with Alan Kerr, Edinburgh based artist, partially on a residency at The Owl Barn, Gloucestershire. The show was first produced with Theatre Paradok, directed by Fiona, between September and November 2014 in Edinburgh, with a five night run at Space Club. The show was devised with the cast and remains mostly unscripted, using game structures and improvisations to create the live action. In May of 2015 Good Punch will repeat this devising process with a new cast, so we imagine the show to grow and change. The show features original sound work by Glasgow based artist, Melanie Dutton. Melanie’s sonic score is made up of mashed-up advertising, Gok Wan, meditation, YouTube tutorials and reality TV excerpts and in the rehearsal process Good Punch worked closely with Melanie taking inspiration from her sound and in turn inspiring her sonic creations.
Can you tell us a bit about your company’s background?
Fiona and Rohanne met in 2011, they both attended Edinburgh College of Art, but really got to know each other as part of the cast of Paradok’s The Conference of the Birds. Conference of the Birds was shown in 2011 in theSpaceUK@Venue 45 to great success, a sell-out 5 night run, with 5 star reviews. Good Punch was created in 2012 after their first show Being. OK, produced with Theatre Paradok, who Rohanne was president of at the time, and directed by Fiona. Kate Banks assistant directed Being. OK’ and has since been an integral part of Good Punch. Since both Fiona and Rohanne have graduated, the company is going from strength to strength, having performed in The Book Club, London, The Arches in Glasgow and Kelburn Garden Party where they return for a second year this summer.
If your show does well in Edinburgh, what do you want to do with it next?
We hope to be able to run Good Punch as a financially viable company in the future, exhibiting our work to wider audiences across the UK initially, with a view to show work internationally. We see our work as existing somewhere between contemporary performance practices, contemporary theatre and live art. For our immediate future, 2016/17 we would like to get work programmed in Live Art festivals across the UK.
Production Company: Good Punch
Venue: theSpace@Surgeons Hall, Grand Theatre
Dates: 24th (preview) 25th-29th August
Times: 22:15 (1hr)
Twitter Handle: @goodpunchgroup
