The Birthday Girls are a sketch trio with high hopes. Sketch comedy is set to make a big comeback and take this years Edinburgh Festival by storm. But it’s been a long time coming…
Television has always been the platform of choice for sketch comedy. As far back as the 1970s and 80s, acts such as The Two Ronnies and Monty Python’s Flying Circus performed their routines to a huge UK audience. But it was only around the turn of the millennium that contemporary live sketch really began to take off. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was host to an influx of sketch comedy and recently a TV programme; BBC3’s Live at the Electric, focused almost entirely on live acts.
One of these acts – LadyGarden – propelled five quirky girls from Manchester into the spotlight. Having enjoyed relative success playing to crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe, the unusual and sometimes slightly disturbing humour of the all-female sketch troupe was broadcast to the nation.
After going through a ‘transitional period’, two of the girls left. The remaining members; Beattie, Camille and Rose have reinvented themselves, taking on the new name of Birthday Girls.
They met at Manchester University and all three knew they wanted to go into comedy, they just weren’t sure how to do it.
“We wanted to stand on stage and make people laugh, but we were too scared to do it on our own, so we formed a sketch group. That way we could blame each other if people didn’t find us funny.
It was pretty easy to get into the sketch comedy business. Anyone can call themselves a sketch comedian. Making any money from it is a different story.”
The girl’s humour can be described as unorthodox. Words they use to describe themselves on their website include ‘bracelet’ and ‘mini-quiche’.
Many of their sketches involve surreal characters and situations and are often rather unsettling…but in a funny way.
One of their sketches centres around a middle-class cocktail party. What seems an ordinary setting soon changes when the guests start spitting blood. It soon transpires that the host has run out of ice-cubes and has instead put broken glass in their drinks because ‘it looks like ice’.
As can be expected, the Birthday Girls sense of humour doesn’t always go down as well as they hope. But then again they are often surprised at how their act is received by the audience.
“Usually the gigs you dread the most are the ones that turn out the best. Once we went to a village in the middle of nowhere and were told that we would be performing in front of elderly farmers. We thought they were going to get the pitchforks out when we came on in leotards doing an interpretive dance, but they bloody loved it. One of the best gigs ever.” Whether their art is agreeable or not, the girls definitely can’t be accused of having low hopes for the future of sketch comedy. On the contrary they believe it will become an unstoppable force;
“It’s going to take over the world, replacing all other forms of entertainment and probably infiltrating government.” The Birthday Girls will be making their debut performance at the Edinburgh Festival later this year.
You can follow the Birthday Girls on Twitter @BdayGirlsComedy.
