Being ill in a foreign country is no fun, especially if you don’t know how to tell anyone what’s wrong. If only I’d learnt how to sing “I have food poisoning” in Czech before I went to Prague:

Crime is a harsh reality of life, but being able to chirpily ask an attacker to spare your life will surely brighten up being mugged at knifepoint for everyone:

If you believe that there’s one person out there for everyone, it’s conceivable that the person for you won’t live in your country, or even speak your language. They may also own a sensational dress:

After your date, you’ll need to keep the conversation going:

But sometimes it turns out that person wasn’t the one for you:

I say that like we have a proper office up here; as ThreeWeeks is only active in Edinburgh for four weeks of the year, during the Festival, the publication operates from a temporary office which is hosted in a different building each year.

Currently, I’m sat in a cordoned off corner of a hotel bar, which is also being used as a backstage area for the two theatre venues that have sprung up in the north wing of the Carlton Hotel. Like our office, these venues will only be here until the end of this month, then the rooms they are in will go back to being function suites for conferences and weddings as if nothing ever happened.

But right now, it is all happening. Edinburgh is overrun with comedians, actors, musicians, dancers, pretty much every sort of performer you could care to think of. As the city’s traditional venues fill up, shows spill out into any room available. Over 20,000 performers and 2500 shows are filling over 200 venues – makeshift or otherwise. It’s all very uplifting and exciting.

It’s a very different scene to what I left behind in London, where I spent Monday afternoon distracted by images on live TV of looting, cars burning and riot police right outside my flat. It was scary not knowing what I would be going back to in a few hours. Actually, I wasn’t even sure at that stage that I’d be able to go back at all that night.

When I walked home at about 8pm the trouble had moved (slightly) further up the road and had been contained by police. All that was left was an eerie feeling, as I walked through an area usually vibrant and full of life, but instead quiet, with most shops shuttered, windows of others smashed, an abandoned bus I’d earlier watched being attacked (again on live TV), and rubbish bins strewn around the road.

Businesses around me have been destroyed, some permanently, and I wait to see when I return to London what long term effect it will have on local people. Instinctively I think it will return to normal, at least on the surface. But I hope that the issues that brought us to this situation are addressed. Simply writing it off as “pure criminality” is not enough. People don’t just become criminals en masse all of a sudden.

It’s right to be angry at the perpetrators of this. There has been destruction on a massive scale, and the targets have been indiscriminate – from corner shop owners who have lost their livelihoods to over 150 independent record labels who lost their entire stocks of CDs and vinyl when a major distribution centre was burned down.

But whatever you think of the people who have been out on the street destroying and looting since Saturday, this week has certainly been a marker. A turning point, perhaps. Or perhaps not. When David Cameron stands up and says: “Young people smashing windows and carrying away televisions is not about inequality”, it doesn’t fill me with a great deal of hope that he has at any point asked why all this might actually have happened.

People will be prosecuted. People should be prosecuted. But if that’s all that happens and our leaders aren’t asking “Why?”, then there’s every chance this will all happen again. Having a completely unshakable answer to something is rarely a good thing.

Originally published in CMU

Of course, you’ll also be aware that Justin turned seventeen this week. That is not a significant thing. People turn seventeen all the time, and it’s one of the most rubbish birthdays you’ll ever have – filled with the disappointing realisation that it’ll be another year before you’re considered an adult. It’s not as bad as nineteen (where you realise that despite being an adult, everyone still thinks you’re an idiot), but it’s close.

No, turning seventeen is nothing. Selling a lock of your hair for $40,000 is something. How many people can say they’ve done that? Probably about… um… not very many. That’s how many.

It all started when Justin completely spontaneously – and with absolutely, definitely and certainly no prior thought about the storm of interest from fans and the media that it would generate – decided to get his hair cut. In a matter of moments, he went from looking like someone who wore a wooden helmet styled on the hair of a Lego man, to someone who had let a drunk friend wave some scissors at them.

Spying an opportunity to raise some cash, the Bieber quickly scooped up his discarded locks and stuck them up for sale on eBay. Well, he didn’t. He never gets directly involved in business deals in case there’s any heat on it later. He needed a go-between, a stooge, a fence, and Ellen DeGeneres was the perfect choice. She already had her own eBay store set up and a charity to launder the spoils through*.

The lock of hair was opened to bids on Wednesday last week and, by the time I got around to looking at it just before we recorded last week’s CMU podcast on Thursday evening, it was already up to $7000. Clearly, there were some serious hair fans out there. Why, we cannot say. It’s not enough to make a wig, and the high unit cost would make it prohibitive to do so, even if he decides to sell more.

One thing was for certain, that hair had a certain power. By Monday it was up to $12,000 and at that point I knew I had to have it. But where would I get that sort of cash? Of course, the answer struck me almost instantly. I informed my Twitter followers that I needed each of them to donate £10 to me. That would provide me with more than enough cash to place my bid.

The results, I’m sad to say, were disappointing. Twitter did not share my enthusiasm. Twitter refused to give me any money. I should have better explained the reverse ‘Bargain Hunt’ theory, which states that anything bought at auction will yield more when sold at an antiques fair. I could have paid them all back and had a few thousand dollars left in my back pocket had I sold it at one of those glorified car boot sales. Now I’m just sat here wondering what to do with the stall I’ve got booked in a marquee on an airstrip in Surrey this Sunday. I’ve already forked out £100 for it and apparently I’m not allowed to cancel at this stage.

Any pop stars with hair they don’t want, please feel free to pass it on to me.

*Just so you know, The Gentle Barn is a very fine charity that is in no way used by Ellen DeGeneres and/or Justin Bieber to launder money raised through any underhand business deals that they are very much not even involved in anyway. All the money collected by The Gentle Barn goes to helping sick donkeys, or whatever it is they do**.

**Actually, I’ve just looked it up and they do the sort of work it would be a bad idea to make light of.

Originally written for CMU. You’ll find it on the CMU website, along with the latest edition of the CMU podcast, here.

The simple answer is that the thing that is the most popular is rarely the best or most creative. And assuming awards are handed out to the things that are best, rather than the things that are most popular, you’re always going to get a more diverse selection from an industry judging system than if you just went and asked members of the public. Because then whoever has the biggest and most proactive fanbase will win, regardless of creativity.

Look at the NME Awards, for example. Voted for by the public, the award for best festival almost always goes to Glastonbury. And when it doesn’t, it goes to Reading and Leeds. Why, because these are the biggest festivals, and the ones the highest number of NME readers go to. So much so, it’s almost not worth asking.

That’s not to say that having a panel or whole academy of industry judges is perfect, nor that they wouldn’t occasionally pick Glasto or Reading to win the Best Festival prize. But other events would almost certainly get more of a look in, if only because some of the judges will be more aware of what else is out there simply as a result of their job. And where a small panel decides who actually meet, well then people are forced to argue the case for why they think their favourite is also ‘best’.

And, of course, less mainstream acts do occasionally triumph even when the public decides, albeit not often. But some of you will remember the Best British Breakthrough Act category at the 1999 BRIT Awards, which was put out to a public vote. Despite being on their third album by that point, Belle & Sebastian beat the likes of Steps, 5ive, Billie Piper, Gomez, Cornershop and other chart toppers to the prize because they had a large (for the time) email database. With mainstream internet use still in its infancy in 1999, Belle & Sebastian just had more geeks amongst their fanbase than anyone else.

But judging panel based events will always throw up a few lesser known winners, and they always have done. Which makes all the debate in the US this week a bit odd. Okay, the initial burst of vitriol from fans of the likes of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Eminem (who felt their favourite artists’ rightful awards had been stolen from them by the like of Esperanza Spalding and Arcade Fire) was understandable. But now it’s people within the industry who are fighting over the validity of the awards.

Best known as the manager of rapper Nas, Steve Stoute also runs an urban-music focused marketing partnerships agency called Translation. And while Bieber fans were taking to Twitter asking who the hell “Arcadia Fyre” were, Stoute was penning a stern letter to the Grammy’s parent organisation the National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences, and its president Neil Portnow, which he then published in a $40,000 full-page New York Times advert. Presumably most Bieber fans don’t have access to that sort of cash.

Stoute said that the US industry’s big awards show had become “a series of hypocrisies and contradictions”, and called on the pop stars of America to make a stand against the awards machine.

The letter says: “I have come to the conclusion that the Grammy Awards have clearly lost touch with contemporary popular culture. My being a music fan has left me with an even greater and deeper sense of dismay … We must acknowledge the massive cultural impact of Eminem and Kanye West and how their music is shaping, influencing and defining the voice of a generation. How is it that Justin Bieber, an artist that defines what it means to be a modern artist, did not win Best New Artist? While these very artists that the public acknowledges as being worthy of their money and fandom are snubbed year after year at the Grammys, the awards show has absolutely no qualms in inviting these same artists to perform. Interesting that the Grammys understands cultural relevance when it comes to using Eminem’s, Kayne West’s or Justin Bieber’s name in the billing”.

Calling on artists to demand that Grammy bosses change the “system”, Stoute continued: “I imagine that next year there will be another televised super-close-up of an astonished front-runner as they come to the realisation before a national audience… that he or she was used. To all of the artists that attend the Grammys: Stop accepting the invitation to be the upset of the year and demand that this body upholds its mission for advocacy and support of artistry as culture evolves. Demand that they change this system and truly reflect and truly acknowledge your art”.

I’m not exactly sure how he thinks the voting system should be changed. Presumably he wants Grammy voters to write a list of which artists they think are most popular, rather than the ones they think are best. Actually, in that case you could get rid of the voting system altogether and just use existing sales or airplay data, which would save time at least.

Following the New York Times ad, The Hollywood Reporter pulled together a handful of responses to Stoute’s letter that had been posted online by US music industry players, including Tommy Boy founder Tom Silverman, industry commentator Bob Lefsetz, and former Grokster head Wayne Russo. None seemed to agree with him explicitly, though all had their own strong opinions on the matter.

Lefsetz came closest to being in full agreement, though took Stoute’s ideas further, saying: “I don’t think only the acts should revolt, but the entire NARAS membership. What we’ve got here is a self-interested dictator in bed with corporations. This helps music how? Don’t get caught up in Stoute’s anger about who won what award. Do get pissed off that popular acts are being utilised for ratings when it’s clear they are not going to win. Where was that segment where the two accountants come out on stage and say that the voting was confidential? Obviously NARAS knew Arcade Fire was gonna win. Otherwise, why would they close the show?”

Russo, however, thought it was all a fuss over nothing: “I would have been more upset if Justin Bieber had won Best New Artist. The little snot is irritating. I doubt that anybody will be humming along to ‘Eenie Meenie’ ten or 20 years from now. You’ll probably not be hearing Michael Buble, Bono or Eric Clapton singing Kanye’s immortal lyric: ‘Let’s have a toast for the douche bags’. I happen to really like Eminem but the Grammys are like the Oscars in many ways. In 1970, John Wayne won the Oscar for Best Actor in ‘True Grit’. It wasn’t a great performance. He was just being John Wayne. He won for his body of work. So consider Eminem to be a 21st century John Wayne. He’ll have his day… and by the way, none of these guys are on food stamps”.

Meanwhile, producer Jermaine Dupris, who was a member of the Grammy voting board until he resigned from NARAS in protest in 2004 over the reaction to then girlfriend Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, took the opposite view to Stoute. Well, he agreed urban music wasn’t always well represented on the winners list, but he didn’t agree that the way to overcome that problem was a boycott. He argued that what was needed was more representatives of urban music getting involved with NARAS.

He wrote: “[When I was on the voting panel] I was the youngest person in the room; not that being old has anything to do with it. Not only was I the youngest person in the room, but I was the only valid hip hop person in the room. We are not on the board as young executives. We have so many young, black executives that claim they’re executives, and say they do this. But they’re not out here doing the work. It should be more people like Steve Stoute on that board”.

Whether anything will come of any of this remains to be seen. It’s not like industry folk don’t complain every year when their artists fail to take home any trophies. But of course you’re going to want the big names there, even if they haven’t delivered the ‘best’ music that year. Because awards events aren’t really about giving pop stars a warm fuzzy feeling inside. They are about selling records. Big names bring big audiences, who can then also be introduced to newer or more alternative talent. I’m no big fan of music awards shows, but surely that’s a good thing? If you can expose Arcade Fire to tens of millions of people who haven’t previously heard of them by getting Rihanna to mime along to a song, then that’s a good job done well as far as I’m concerned.

But I’ll give the final word to Arcade Fire’s manager Scott Rodger, who said in an email to the aforementioned Lefsetz: “Arcade Fire deserved the win this year. They made the best album. If the award was names ‘Album Sales Of The Year’ award, there would be no discussion. Stoute’s letter was a nice piece of self-publicity. Did he see Kanye’s tweets when we won and the praise he gave us? He needs to tune in. Eminem made a big selling album but it was far from being his best work. Katy Perry made a big pop record that simply didn’t have weight or credibility. Gaga’s repackage, great album but it was a repackage of the main release. I think everyone felt it was going to be Lady Antebellum’s moment having won five out of six awards to that point. We all felt that way, too”.

He continued: “I’m proud of this band and what they have achieved. We didn’t lobby any organisation for this, nor did the band play the game. We paid our own overhead to do the event, thus the lack of on stage gimmicks. No label picked up the tab. Arcade Fire are now one of the biggest live acts in the world. It’s not all about record sales. It’s about making great records and it’s about building a loyal fan base. The band make great albums, they’re not a radio-driven singles band. On top of that, they own their own masters and copyrights and are in complete control of their own destiny. Things couldn’t be better”.

This article is an amalgamation of two pieces I wrote this week for CMU, here and here. For audio discussion of the Steve Stoute debate (like you’ve not already had enough in text form) and more, listen to the CMU podcast, which you can download from iTunes here.

Earlier this month, Slash told Entertainment Weekly: “Glee is worse than ‘Grease’ and ‘Grease’ is bad enough. I look at ‘Grease’ now and think, ‘Between ‘High School Musical’ and ‘Glee’, ‘Grease’ was a work of art’”.

‘Grease’ is a work of art, of course, but I can see his point. Murphy can’t though. He is unwilling to accept that some people might think that musical films and TV shows set in American high schools are a bit shit, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “Usually I find that people who make those comments, their careers are over; they’re uneducated and quite stupid”.
Oof! Succinctly taken down there. Okay, he focused on his own personal and possibly groundless opinions of Slash, rather than addressing the guitarist’s claims against the artistic credibility of his show, but, hey, at least he did it in a more measured and calm manner than Axl Rose did on ‘Get In The Ring’.

With the former Guns N Roses guitarist defeated, Murphy moved on to Kings Of Leon. Last year, in an interview with the NME, bassist Nathan Followill revealed that they’d turned down the opportunity to have their music used in ‘Glee’ – despite the fact that “apparently everybody loves it” – saying: “We could have sold out so much more. We turn stuff down constantly”.

A reasonable thing to say, you might think. After all many artists like to keep a tight control over how and when their music is used. Not so, apparently. Kings Of Leon, in their heartless attempt to stop their music from becoming even more overly dispersed than it already is, are apparently stopping The Kids from learning to play musical instruments and sing.

Or, as Murphy put it: “Fuck you, Kings Of Leon. They’re self-centred assholes and they missed the big picture. They missed that a seven year old kid can see someone close to their age singing a Kings Of Leon song, which will maybe make them want to join a glee club or pick up a musical instrument. It’s like, OK, hate on arts education. You can make fun of ‘Glee’ all you want, but at its heart, what we really do is turn kids on to music”.

First off, aren’t all the characters in ‘Glee’ in their late teens and played by people in their late 20s? That’s not exactly close in age to seven year olds. And second, I thought ‘Glee’ was a cynical attempt to sell cover versions of songs to teenagers. Clearly that part of it was a front.

With this quote in hand, The Hollywood Reporter rushed straight round to KOL frontman Caleb Followill’s house with a dictaphone and played him the evidence. He was shocked.

“This whole ‘Glee’ thing is a shock to us”, he said. “It’s gotten out of hand. At the time of the request, we hadn’t even seen the show. It came at the end of that record cycle, and we were [bored of] promoting [it]. This was never meant as a slap in the face to ‘Glee’ or to music education or to fans of the show. We’re not sure where the anger is coming from”.

And that could so easily have been the end of it. But someone always has to mouth off on Twitter, don’t they? In this case it was the band’s drummer Nathan Followill, who wrote on Wednesday: “Dear Ryan Murphy, let it go. See a therapist, get a manicure, buy a new bra. Zip your lip and focus on educating seven year olds how to say ‘fuck’”.

Murphy got straight on the phone to Perez Hilton to denounce what he saw as a gay slur, saying: “That’s a homophobe badly in need of some education. I’m all for manicures, don’t wear a bra. Would guess most gay dudes don’t. It’s telling that Nathan can reduce a group of people to a mean-spirited cliché, in a time where young gay men are killing themselves all over the country because of hatred like this”.

Oof again! But, Murphy did hold out an olive branch, adding: “That said, I would love to sit down with Nathan or any member of Kings [Of] Leon, and tell them how on ‘Glee’ we actually love their music, and support their artistry… but cannot condone or even laugh at their clear disdain of gay people”.

Of course, you could read Followill’s comments differently, and think that he was accusing Murphy of being like a whiney woman. Though if you do, bang goes the drummer’s new job presenting football coverage on the all new Sky Sports. Except he says it was neither, and later deleted the offending tweet, saying: “I’m sorry for anyone that misconstrued my comments as homophobic or misogynistic. I’m so not that kind of person. I really do apologise”.

Yeah, he presumably meant the other form of prejudice where you might accuse a man of needing a bra; he was saying Ryan Murphy is obese. I’ve seen photos of him, he’s actually pretty skinny. Oh my God, Nathan Followill hates fat people and promotes anorexia! Someone prepare a statement, quick!

This is one of the many things I wrote for CMU this week. You can see the original here.

Noel’s Funny Phone Calls

These days, Noel Edmonds pisses about on Deal Or No Deal pretending to talk to an imaginary bank manager on the telephone. Back in the late 70s he actually phoned real people and messed with their minds. This is the sort of hilarious shit he got up to:

The Paul Daniels Magic Show

Yes, that’s right, the Paul Daniels Magic Show audio book. It’s an audio book of a magic show. Actually, there’s a very simple explanation for how this record came to exist, but it ruins the illusion that it’s an audio recording of a man doing magic tricks. Therefore, I’m keeping it to myself. Instead, let’s just stare down the Daniels tunnel this cover creates and forget I said anything.

We all know Simon Cowell as the world’s harshest talent show judge, but he has worked for many years in the music industry to gain that position. He started out in the late 70s working in the mail room at EMI Music Publishing, where his father was an executive, before becoming an assistant to one of the company’s A&R men. Not long after this he set up his first record company, Fanfare Records, which released a number of hit records, most notably by the singer Sinitta, who later became Cowell’s fiancé too, although they split up before actually tying the knot.

In 1989, he became an A&R consultant for BMG, and throughout the nineties signed a huge number of artists who, while perhaps not always particularly credible, went on to sell millions of records.

Then, in 2002, he formed Syco, the entertainment company responsible for, of course, ‘X Factor’, as well as Cowell’s numerous other hit TV shows. In 2006, Cowell claimed that, despite only employing 14 people, Syco was responsible for 40% of its parent company, Sony Music (UK)’s profits.

But, come on, enough of all this talk, let’s have some cold, hard facts. What has Simon Cowell really done? Well, here are five number one singles that were, for better or worse, all down to Simon Cowell.

Five – Keep On Movin’
Created by the same team as the Spice Girls and signed by Cowell in 1997, Five (or 5ive) launched their career when they featured on a TV show about nasty neighbours. Bad boy status achieved, they quickly followed it up with chart success too. ‘Keep On Movin’, the third single from their second album, was their first number one.

Westlife – Swear It Again
Westlife have never tried to cultivate a bad boy reputation, which may or may not have contributed to them reaching number one in the singles charts no less than 14 times. Managed by Cowell’s ‘X Factor’ judging buddy Louis Walsh, the group started as they intended to go on by reaching the top with their debut single, ‘Swear It Again’.

Robson & Jerome – Unchained Melody
Robson Green and Jerome Flynn’s characters performed ‘Unchained Melody’ in an episode of TV’s ‘Soldier Soldier’. Cowell convinced them (under duress, if the stories are to be believed) to record it as a single, and by the following year the duo had released three singles and two albums, all of which went to number one.

Teletubbies – Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’
Continuing his run of turning TV stars into pop stars, Cowell signed up the latest kids TV sensation the Teletubbies in 1997, hoping to get the Christmas number one. The Spice Girls beat them to that particular accolade, but they did reach the top of the charts for two weeks in the run up to the festive period.

Leona Lewis – Bleeding In Love
Of course, now Cowell is best know for turning ordinary people into TV stars before turning them into pop stars. There’s no doubt that his biggest success in this area is 2006 ‘X Factor’ winner Leona Lewis, who he hid away for a year before unleashing her into the world again with this single, which went straight to number one in 12 countries.

Okay, you might say this case is different. This is a singing competition. This is the ‘X-Factor’. This is a search for Great Britain’s next big vocal talent, and if the programme’s makers are applying Auto-tune to people’s voices, how are we to know who is genuinely the best singer?

Well, firstly, let’s not even pretend that ‘X-Factor’ is a singing competition. If it was, such a large proportion of the show wouldn’t be devoted to humiliating deluded people. People whose comically warped opinion of their own singing ability has already been spotted by the show’s production team in the early stages of the auditions (the ones before they actually get in front of Simon and co). This whole section of the series is about laughing at idiots, with the occasional break for a sob story or an introduction to a ‘possible future star’.

All of which makes it ludicrous that anyone would complain about Auto-tune software being used to make the good people sound better and the bad people sound worse. If everyone was portrayed as being as close to average as they probably are, it would make for some pretty dull television and everyone would complain that it was boring. And the last thing ‘X-Factor’ wants to be is boring.

Last Saturday a record 11.1 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of the new series. Some of them then accused the show of using Auto-tune. And the show’s makers readily admitted it, issuing a statement saying: “The judges make their decisions at the auditions stage based on what they hear on the day, live in the arena. The footage and sound is then edited and dubbed into a finished programme, to deliver the most entertaining experience possible for viewers. When it gets to the live shows, it will be all live”.

The people who spotted the vocal manipulation had not done so because they were specialists in audio production, but because it was plainly obvious. If you actually listen to the vocals that were edited on last weekend’s programme, the tweaks were applied so heavy-handedly (distorting, rather than tuning), and seemingly at random, that you can’t help thinking someone involved in the show wanted people to notice. Either that, or they’ve got someone new in to do their sound editing, and s/he’s incredibly rubbish.

As a result of this, the show has been in the news all week, which is good news for the programme, its producers, its sponsors and its broadcaster ITV. ‘X-Factor’ traditionally keeps itself in the news by feeding stories to the tabloids about how the judges all hate each other and Louis Walsh could leave at any moment. But people are wise to that now. And anyway, simply turning up the Auto-tune a little has resulted in far more coverage than Louis’ fake tantrums ever could.

The only really interesting part of this story reveals itself if you turn your attention to ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, which is, of course, made by the same production team. The most successful thing that has ever happened on that show, or to any of its contestants (or to any contestant on a Cowell-owned franchise) is Susan Boyle’s first audition in front of the celebrity panel in 2009. She went on to be one of 2009′s most successful artists – worldwide – all because of that short audition peice, which became an internet phenomenon, thanks to YouTube and some high profile tweets. And this was an audition video that – rumours now has it – was very probably Auto-tuned.

But, hey, you’ll have to go a long way to find a mainstream artist whose voice isn’t Auto-tuned, even if just a little, these days. By manipulating contestants’ voices, ‘X-Factor’ is just preparing us for the reality of what’s to come. Really, instead of banning the software, which they claim to have now done, the show’s makers should have come out this week and said: “We’re going to Auto-tune the shit out of every single voice on the show from now on, because of your ridiculous high expectations. Now shut up and take it”. And then found a sound engineer who could use the technology without making it quite so bleedin obvious.

This was the ‘Beef Of The Week’ in the 27 Aug 2010 edition of CMU Weekly, which you can read right here.

Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler came to the Fringe for the first time as a double act last year, having made their solo debuts the year before, and left with an IF.comedy main prize nomination for under their belts. The show in question, ‘Double Down Hearts’, loosely centres on a fictional play about a gambling addict with a hair-lip as a hook for their intriguing line in surreal sketches, and returns to Edinburgh for a second run this year.

The pair met through the People’s Improv Theatre in New York in 2004, thanks to a shared desire to launch a new show. “I wanted to start a variety show and heard that she did too”, explains Kurt. Kristen continues, “We’d never really hung out or had a conversation before, but that brought us together and it was a good match”.

Given the synchronicity of their performance styles, I ask how they both came into comedy in the first place. Schaal seems to have arrived at it almost without noticing. “I started in high school”, she tells me. “Maybe a bit before that. When you’re younger people find out you’re funny without you realising and you just run with it”.

Kurt, on the other hand, comes back with a clearer memory of his route to the stage. “I was homeless for the first four years after I moved to New York”, he begins. “So I would tell jokes on subways and I eventually saved up enough to get an apartment. I thought it had worked well for me so far, so I just carried on doing it”.

Receiving the Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination last year was “a thrill”, says Kristen. But, adds Kurt, they were glad when the prize went to David O’Doherty. “We wanted someone from the UK to win because the difference it makes to your career if you’re in the UK is much bigger than if you’re primarily in the States”, he says. “It changes the game for David O’Doherty. It was much more useful for him and he’s a friend of ours, so it was great to see him win. I didn’t expect the nomination, but it was great to get one”.

The duo are bringing the same show back to the Festival for a second time, so you’d expect everything to be highly polished. And it should be, says Schaal, but they need to be careful not to let their tendency for improvisation get the better of them. “We’re really looking forward to doing the show again, because it was so much fun last year. We just need to stay focused and not accidentally do a whole new show”.

Kurt adds, “Once we get on started, who knows what will happen. Ideally it should be word for word the same, but we might do something new”.

This year, too, Kristen explains, they will be more prepared for what will meet them when they hit Scotland. “We perform the same everywhere”, she says. “But Edinburgh is more challenging physically, doing so many shows back to back. Edinburgh has been a bit of a test, as well. It helped us learn what American things aren’t received. And the Festival’s great because there are so many enthusiastic theatre lovers there”.

For those new to the Schaal and Braunohler experience, what should we expect from the show? Kurt has a succinct response. “This show is like if a brother and a sister wanted to have sex with each other but didn’t know it and put on a show for their town fair”, he announces with a touch of mischief in his voice.

As for their comedy influences, Kurt is equally sure. “There’s a show called ‘Mr Show’, which I don’t think has really been shown in the UK”, he starts. “It starred David Cross and Bob Odenkirk. It was on in the early 90s and is probably one of my biggest influences. People in the UK really should be watching it, especially as David Cross is known for other things now. It’s amazing. It’s straight up sketch comedy but it all flows from one piece to the next. That’s something I’ve always strived to do”.

Kristen and Kurt came to the UK earlier in the year to film a TV show of their own, a one-off episode based on their internet comedy show, ‘Penelope Princess Of Pets’, for Channel 4’s ‘Comedy Lab’, featuring guest appearances from Daniel Kitson, Julian Barratt of ‘Mighty Boosh’, and ‘Peep Show’ star Isy Suttie.

“We reworked it so the story takes place in the UK, says Kristen. “All the characters are now British and it’s set in London. But we wanted to keep the same sensibilities, keeping it fantastical, with the same jokes”.

And it was all thanks to the Fringe that it got made at all, adds Kurt. “That all happened in Edinburgh. Our producer saw ‘Penelope Princess Of Pets’ and loved it and got it to Channel 4. We shot it in May and now it’s airing in October”.

They are also developing a TV show in America, but much preferred the experience of making a programme in Britain.

“We’re perpetually working on selling a TV show in the States”, sighs Kristen, who is, of course, best known in her role as stalker-fan Mel in ‘Flight Of The Conchords’. “We have a deal, but it’s whether or not what we come up with is lame enough to fit the parameter. TV companies are lame in America. They’re very uncreative. They’re just interested in what they know will make money instead of taking risks. They want another version of ‘Two And A Half Men’, which is the top rating comedy show over here, but isn’t what we think is funny”.

She continues, “Channel 4 was a joy to work with, it was a lot more free. We hope that it’ll be a series, that would be our dream”.

Hopefully that won’t remain a dream for long. But right now, the reality of Kristen and Kurt on stage is something you should be experiencing.

Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler – Double Down Hearts, Assembly/Avalon, Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 21 – 30 Aug, 10.05pm (11.05pm), prices vary, fpp69.