Performers: EGG (Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini) Photograph by: James Deacon Show: Richard Pictures Venue: Pleasance Courtyard: The Cellar Promoter: Berk’s Nest
Tell me about your Edinburgh show.
Our show is called Richard Pictures*. It’s a sketch show by Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini – two off-white women ready to ask all the questions that aren’t about fertility. That’s not why we called EGG guys, come on.
*a classy dick pic
Tell me about your first gig.
Our first gig was at Leicester Comedy festival in 2016. It was the first time any other humans had seen our stuff. Emily’s friends from Nottingham turned up and she was terrified because they’d never seen her do character stuff before. But it ended up being all the fun. However, none of those sketches made it to our show.
Do you have any rituals before going on stage?
We hold each other, tell each other we got this, then pull faces at each other in silence until it’s time to go on.
Tell me about your best and worst review.
Our best review took the form of an audience member getting one of our punchlines tattooed on to himself. There’s no amount of stars that can beat that.
The worst was actually a good review that published the majority of our punchlines… not exactly helpful.
During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?
Absolutely. We can move on if we get a bad one. We love what we’re doing, and it’s the audience that matter.
How do you feel about reviewers generally?
We love good ones. That’s not to say they have to love us, sometimes even the criticism is spot on. But it can be disheartening to read something where it’s clear the reviewer has no experience in the field.
In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?
I mean we’re not trained in law, we’re trained in making jokes that don’t suck as bad as his. He’s not invited to our show.
Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?
Of course. But it’s relative. What’s distasteful to one person might be hilarious to another. Our personal motto is we never punch down.
Have you ever gone too far?
Yes. Let’s end that there shall we…
Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.
Our 2nd ever set was at the Southbank Centre. It was 15 mins and we were so new. But every joke hit, it was lots of fun and we realised we were onto something good. And here we are now…
