Kate Copstick - You Should've Been Here Last Week

[00:00:00] You can count the punters on one hand.

[00:00:05] But last week they were completely wrapped.

[00:00:08] They were filled up to the guddles.

[00:00:10] They were pewing down the street.

[00:00:12] They said you should have been here last week.

[00:00:15] I swear, you should have been here last week.

[00:00:19] Oh yeah, you should have been here last week.

[00:00:24] Oh yeah, you should have been here last week. minutes before I could even introduce her because she just started off on on 11. Well that's what we want. So here we are Kate Copstick. I mean I was very hard pushed to find anything very much that I wanted to go and see in this

[00:01:40] year's bench. Oh right okay that's one of the questions I was going to ask you. I mean, I mentioned obviously, as we know. So, you know, I was around when comedy was about laughs. It was quite good. That was quite enjoyed that. It was difficult. It could be very difficult, but you know, they worked really hard and they did it. And then, you know, we had

[00:03:02] a little bit of politics. At the beginning, it was great, to me, seemed at this fringe looking at the program, Jesus, thity, fucking Christ. Everybody's brave. Everybody's bravely talking about their brave struggle with an ingrowing toenail.

[00:04:21] I mean, it could be, you know, and in the anything it's not that that's ridiculous no I'm glad you're not saying that no no no it's becoming and it's not that there isn't a lot that is right and true in a lot of what is being said it's just that it's it's being done in order of the number of chips there are on the backside of them. And you quite like wearing lipstick every so often. I don't give a shit.

[00:07:03] I just don them so much. I make allowances for them. I wouldn't make for other comics.

[00:08:22] You know, similarly, there are not very many of being treated like a bully. But so then after that, it was all very sort of androgynacy with Casey.

[00:09:45] And then it was an English teacher at school, Donald Campbell. what I feel is that by boring people, so sorry, by talking about it, that great length, I'm helping other people to be brave about it too. And kindness, I think is the most important. Andness, my evil review will do two things. One, it will intrigue enough people. They'll go and see to see this. Because, A, the person's, the comics never going to get better until they play to a load more people. B, there's hundreds of shows at the fringe that just skimming through their blur by no

[00:13:41] I would lose. I just, you know, I'm just thinking that what I like is risk and what a good grief. I was one of the first person to give Michael McIntyre five stars. Boy, it's genius. Wonderful. But there's nice in gentle and kind of inclusive and everything.

[00:15:04] Yeah. the woke generation, I think it is a bit for some comics. But I think that mainly it's to do with comics wanting to become them of the telly. You know, the world. You know, it's not just, well, you know, they don't like that kind of thing and bazing stoke. You've got everybody. So there is exactly, but a lot of the time, it's all about getting

[00:17:40] telly people in. It's all about getting agents in. It's all about getting

[00:18:43] You know the be all an end all of their

[00:18:47] professional year is

[00:18:48] not getting on

[00:18:50] You know a out of 10 cats does yet something else pointless

[00:18:55] I'm just so so so grateful that

[00:19:00] Peter Buckley Hill is still there and

[00:19:04] You know, I know other free fringes are also available

[00:20:12] I very rarely, if ever go and review something because a PR person gets in touch, I don't think that's the sense terrible.

[00:20:13] I don't think that's kind of the right attitude.

[00:20:15] Well, go to get PR, go to get this, go get that.

[00:20:18] Do it yourself.

[00:20:20] I do.

[00:20:21] I don't know whether it's good thing or a bad thing a matter of opinion, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I'd loathe the star system. Well, I was going to get onto that. One is the star system ridiculous and for purpose, seeing only one or four or five matter.

[00:21:40] And the other one is second question is a supplementary question.

[00:21:44] Have you ever written a free read like a four?

[00:22:46] it's eight. You know, it was like falling in love. You know, I always need to say that one star show is I would not fuck you if you

[00:22:50] were the last sentient being on earth. A two star show is

[00:22:58] well, you know, if you have to if you came up with a really good

[00:23:01] reason, or if I got drunk and if you give something a five star review they're probably not going to read nobody's going to, not often, I think I probably avoid and everyone will think that a lot now. Yes. But if there's good some good stuff in there, you can't just go, I'm not saying you see, I, you know, I find this person incredibly irritating and I can't help it feel this review will disappoint them because they obviously adore themselves

[00:28:22] way more than any reviewer ever could. But you know, I do a lot of year wicking in bars and in cues and whatnot. But they're talking like, you know, they're career makers and career breakers.

[00:29:40] Yeah, they got a Lanyard. Well, what would you have to do? I'm hoping to make that happen by the end of this interview. I was going to say about the quality of criticism. How do we improve that? I mean, there's prizes for comedians and there's not one for criticism.

[00:31:00] And I was thinking if there was a prize for that, perhaps that might improve it.

[00:31:04] You want to start one?

[00:31:05] No.

[00:31:06] I think there's too many prizes. Because it's just what you get a sudden gosh, I like that word, gosh of inspiration, meets passion, meets brilliance, and you suddenly many review, you'll notice this August, so many reviewers not coming. I mean, this leads on to the obvious question of future of Edinburgh, the state of the fringe as an entity is dead this year already. And I'm quite sure what can be done to address the egregious greed of Edinburgh landlords.

[00:35:01] A lot of the reasons that everybody used's become so corporate and fringe should be the antithesis

[00:36:22] of corporate. I call it something else. Edinburgh amazing... I mean, I would say that Edinburgh can be the most exhilarating place on Earth or also the loneliest. Company, that's again. So think that's the word, that's the modern word for it. Yeah, they should change the review system, shouldn't they? There should be, oh my God. Ooh, and I. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's hard to spell. Yeah.

[00:39:05] I mean, I did get five stars from my first show,

[00:40:22] but that was because I got reviewed twice He's not on our list. Um, couldn't be used by me, which is good. Uh, not so good for two other acts who got four star reviews off this blog. Oh, who then went. So I had to tell them, I said, look, you can't use the stars. At one point, they complained to her and they said, look, we pay 1500 pounds because they paid a lot more than me.

[00:40:24] And she said, what do you expect for 1500 pounds?

[00:41:22] You know, it's if you don't exist.

[00:41:27] You name it, gets reviewed all year long, comedy, just three and a half weeks.

[00:41:33] To quote Oscar Wilde, we're all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

[00:41:37] That means like a five.