Toecurling. That’s the adjective that stuck with me – they said their sketches were sometimes toecurling. And when I asked them what they meant, they drew my attention to the electrocution of a pensioner for fun. It’s not to say that I couldn’t get a straight answer out of either of them, they just simply and clearly enjoy getting a laugh.
The creative team and comedy duo behind “Aliens Ate MySchnitzel!” are Lheila Oberman and Timothy Dodd. That much we do know. Whether or not anything else they say is true remains to be seen and quite simply cannot be ascertained. The pair teamed up, apparently, when Lheila was performing with a lesbian improvisation group in an ‘alternative’ club in King’s Cross, and Tim spotted her ‘awesome talents’ on the way to the bar.
The pair have been working together for years before now. Both trained as actors and began writing together before performing as a duo in 2007. Prior to working together they claim to have been stunt performers for guerrilla marketing companies. “We infiltrated the media, TV shows and radiophone-ins pretending to be members of the public whilst shamelessly promoting random products”, she explains, “we were commercial strumpets and RADA has never forgiven us.”
From there they moved into performing together, but this is not their first time at the Fringe. “We have both been in several plays at the Fringe before”, Lheila tells me, “We appeared in a number of groundbreaking works by other writers which set new records in ‘cast outnumbering the audience’ ratios.” Schnitzel is, however, their first play at the Fringe together, following the success of their sketches around the London comedy circuit.
It seems to be a great point for them now to take their act to the next level. “We’ve been performing our sketches for a year,” she tells me, “but this is our first full length show as a comedy double act. We got to the point of wanting control of our own performance space. We came to the festival really to find out who we are and who our audience is”.
And what exactly have they found out? So far the show’s been a great success: “We are delighted. We have been having great audiences, fantastic feedback and are loving the whole experience” Lhelia enthuses,“also, during they day we are living in a plastic wendy house in Arthur Smith’s Arthurart exhibition as a piece of installation art. Our starting point for the piece was Adam and Eve in a zoo enclosure. Despite instructions not to feed us the public have been giving us wine gums.”
They claim their comedy inspiration comes from the likes of Laurel and Hardy, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen; all comedy greats, but how is this particularly satirical show brought together? “The sketches have a non-verbal starting point, often taking a behavioural trait to kick start some improvisation. Then we keep working on character and structure until it is ready to run it by an audience. A lot of effort clearly goes into this process, as the lives of several of the show’s characters are continued online.
“We might be a bit sad but we really do spend a lot of time fantasizing about the characters’ lives off stage,” they continue, “the website allows us to show you what else they get up to.” It certainly seems to work, but do the performers have particular favourites? “Our favourite sketch is the Euro-Pop divas ‘Zig-Al-Zoom’”, I’m assured, “these characters believe they are charismatic, loved, desired and successful. Being them is so much more fun than just being us”.
Graham McIntosh
