PRESS RELEASE July 2005
Downloadable poster HERE
Presents
JOHN SPARKES and PETE BAIKIE
in
‘VARIETY SANDWICH'
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
3-28 August (not 15 or 22) at 8.30pm
Gilded Balloon Teviot – Dining Room
13 Bristo Square
VENUE 14
0131 668 1633 or book online at www.gildedballoon.co.uk
Notes to editors:
• Three time Perrier Award Nominees
• Four Time BAFTA winners
• First time at Festival Fringe Since 1990
• World Premiere Show
• Interviews for syndication attached
PRESS RELEASE July 2005
Presents
JOHN SPARKES and PETE BAIKIE in
‘VARIETY SANDWICH'
Variety is not dead. Neither are John Sparkes and Pete Baikie who return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time in 15 years after winning four Welsh BAFTAS and numerous plaudits for their hit shows such as Absolutely , Naked Video and most recently six series of the cult HTV show Barry Welsh Is Coming .
Three times Perrier Award nominated Sparkes and Baikie have unearthed acres of archive footage from the Fifties to the present day to create a new-style Variety extravaganza – a mix of filmed tributes to long-forgotten (fictional) acts such as Mr. Motionless, Billy Daft, and The Marxist Brothers, and live performances from variety veterans such as the oldest comedian still alive, Johnny Fffff, and the great Russian illusionist Yaputcha Leffleggin. Pete and John also promise appearances from some of the best-loved characters from Absolutely .
ABSOLUTELY PRESENTS JOHN SPARKES AND PETE BAIKIE - BIOGS
JOHN SPARKES
Many millions of years ago John was a single celled organism living in a pond, but more recently he's been working as a mammal, successfully walking upright and developing an opposing thumb so that he can hold a pint. In the 1980's he learned how to hold a microphone as well and became a stand-up comedian, being nominated for the Perrier Award in 1987 for his first solo Edinburgh show.
Around this time he started appearing as Siadwel on BBC 2's Naked Video . Finding television a less dangerous environment than comedy clubs, he settled there, writing and appearing in Absolutely and Squawkietalkie for Channel 4, followed by Barry Welsh is Coming for HTV and Pub Quiz for BBC Wales , both produced by fellow Abso. Pete Baikie.
John and Pete have won 4 Welsh BAFTAS for Barry Welsh and Hugh Pugh's History of Wales and last year, believe it or not John was one of Ken Dodd's Comedy Heroes on Channel Five. He's also the voice of Fireman Sam .
This summer John is doing two shows at the Gilded Balloon in the Edinburgh Fringe. It'll be the first time he's been there since 1989 and, incredibly, it's also
ABSOLUTELY PRESENTS JOHN SPARKES AND PETE BAIKIE – BIOGS
PETE BAIKIE
Edinburgh born Pete Baikie has written over 5000 TV shows including Dixon of Dock Green , Opportunity Knocks , and Grandstand . On a more interesting and truthful level, he has written nearly 92 television and radio themes including Shooting Stars , Two Fat Ladies , 2DTV , The Joan Rivers Position and I am not an animal . Pete was one-sixth of the cult tv sketch show Absolutely (which recently made the top 30 in Channel 4's 100 Best Sketch Shows ) specialising in Mr. Muzak and the Fat Laughing Greek Bloke on a tractor.
He has also co-written, produced and presented the comedy nature series ‘Squawkietalkie'for Channel 4, and won 4 Welsh BAFTAS as the producer of ‘Barry Welsh is Coming'. He's produced ‘Pub Quiz' for BBC Wales, ‘The Morwenna Banks show' for Channel 5 and less than 73 editions of ‘The Jack Docherty show'. He co-hosted ‘Saturday Night Jack' on Radio 2 and in 1993, acted opposite Kenny Branagh in the Disney film ‘Swing Kids' playing a bandleader who talks with a dodgy American accent.
Pete is also the leader of ‘The Peteles' who were Jack Docherty's house band and toured the world with the comedy pop combo ‘The Hairstyles'. He has humbly accompanied Glen Campbell on telly once and played ‘Name that tune' with David Bowie.
He's a director of Absolutely productions, has a Wurlitzer juke-box and amazingly
PRESENTS
JOHN SPARKES and PETE BAIKIE in
‘VARIETY SANDWICH'
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2005
3-28 August (not 15 or 22) at 8.30pm
Metro Gilded Balloon Teviot – Dining Room
Bristo Square
VENUE 14
0131 668 1633 or book online at www.gildedballoon.co.uk
“A few thoughts from John and Pete”
(EDITORS: FREE INTERVIEW FOR SYNDICATION)
PETE: “When we decided to do a show for Edinburgh, we started going to see comedians on the circuit to find out what live comedy is like now – we hadn't done any stage work since the early 90's. Initially, we thought this was going to be a problem – then we realised it wasn't a problem because it made us different, and we decided to make the show even more old-fashioned.
“We decided on a variety show with us doing a number of characters who are performing their acts.
ABSOLUTELY PRESENTS JOHN SPARKES + PETE BAIKIE INTERVIEW - 2
“But it's a variety show with a difference because the backbone of the show is a series of film packages featuring (fictional) variety acts, from the past, that we really like including Mr. Motionless, Billy Daft, The Marxist Brothers and Glasgwegian comedian Bobby McChrist, the son of the son of God. These packages have been created from amazing old black and white footage we found in a dusty room in Wales. Loads of film canisters had been thrown into a basement in HTV Wales, containing news footage dating from the 50's and had been gathering dust for forty years. When we excavated this footage we found some amazing stuff and as well as creating our own footage character Hugh Pugh for Barry Welsh, we have re-edited it to create a new black and white world of variety. We have also edited ourselves into the footage, interviewing people about the acts they've seen – it's a development of the work we've been doing at ITV Wales (and for which we've picked up four Welsh BAFTAS).
“About 15 minutes of the show is made up of archive footage, and the other 45 is us doing comedy characters and music and some of the old ‘Absolutely' and ‘Barry Welsh' characters will be there too.”
JOHN: “So this show's on at 8.30 and at 11.00, I'm back at the same venue (Metro Gilded Balloon – Dining room) doing Filth with Frank Hovis. “
Why do two shows? “Well, I think the show's title gives the reason really. It's just too much for 8.30 in the evening – it's still light outside; you can't do this sort of stuff unless it's dark.”
What sort of stuff? “Well, it's Frank Hovis regaling the audience with bits of his life story, really – and his life is a bit more earthy than most people's. When he appeared on Absolutely, one reviewer called him ‘TV's most disgusting man', but funny with it. No point in just being disgusting.”
Presents Frank Hovis in ‘Filth'
‘Filth' features John Sparkes as Frank Hovis, one of his regular characters when he was a stand-up and on C4's ‘Absolutely'.
Frank's life is beset with problems – as he explains to the audience: “Some of these things will have happened to some of you. All of them have happened to me.”
He also suffers from a complete lack of insight – when a TV reviewer from the Times wrote that he was “Television's most disgusting man,” Frank responded by setting up a campaigning group called ‘Clean Up National Television'
Filth gives Frank the opportunity to set the record straight and regale the audience with the bits of his life story that he can remember – and sing a few songs to cheer himself up.
3-28 August (not 15 or 22) at 8.30pm
Gilded Balloon Teviot – Dining Room
Box Office: 0131-668-1633
Book online at www.gildedballoon.co.uk
