Performer, writer-director and comedy polymath Stuart Laws (nominee Leicester Comedy Festival Best Show, Comedian Choice Best Show) brings his most personal show yet to the Edinburgh Fringe as he talks about receiving a diagnosis of autism. It’s a show about relationships and Stuart catching up on the fact that he didn’t know who he was for almost 40 years – he tells us more.
Q&A with Stuart Laws
How does it feel to be returning to Edinburgh Fringe?
Lean in close, you hear that? That’s my heart, and I’ve managed to slow it down to 41bpm. That’s elite athlete resting heart rate level. The Edinburgh Fringe ain’t ready for me, oh hang on, it’s 141bpm what the hell? I’m barely moving, how is that possible? Oh no, how long till the Fringe? Oh that’s not enough time.
What can you tell us about your show and its inspiration?
It’s a sequel to last year’s show, and not just because it’s me doing comedy again. It stands alone but follows on from 2023, where I told the truth on stage for the first time and tackled a weightier topic. Last year that was the concept of long grief, this year it’s to do with relationships and how significant it is to know yourself. But you know, with stupid jokes about throwing away towels and American toilet cubicles and wet dreams.
How do you think audiences will react to the show?
They’re gonna be calling up their insurance companies to ask if their sides getting split is covered, because ain’t a one person leaving that venue with in tact sides. I’m calling it. Newspaper headlines: don’t go to Monkey Barrel Hive 2 at 4:45pm if you care about your sides.
How have you been preparing for the festival?
How the fucking festival been preparing for me more like? You asking the festival these questions? Hey, festival, Stuart Laws coming into town, how you preparing for that? If you want the actual answer it’s: paying around £7000 for posters, rent, PR, flyers, producers and various admin elements.
Will you get a chance to enjoy the rest of the festival?
Deadpool & Wolverine, Kensuke’s Kingdom, Didi, Trap, Alien: Romulus, Blink Twice – all coming out in the cinema during the fringe and I’ll be there, partaking in a form of entertainment where if I don’t look entertained – it doesn’t matter. I will also go and see Chloe Radcliffe, Ania Magliano, Chris Cantrill, Josh Jones, Sarah Keyworth and Nish Kumar because I won’t have to worry about looking entertained – I’ll be so goddamn entertained it’ll be all over my face and sides.
Do you have any Fringe anecdotes you can share with us?
Ok, get ready. In 2016 I was staying in a spare room of an elderly woman’s flat near the meadows. It was cheap but shonky, with a shower that I could crawl into from my bed without touching the floor. It had an outside door straight into my room and so I never really had to see her or go into the main flat. She reiterated that I didn’t need to go into the main flat. Fine, I love rules.
First ten days nothing at all really going on, I’m out late, up early, not really in the room – although there is a running leak from one corner of the room, down the wall. It’s fine, I keep the window cracked, it doesn’t look mouldy, partly because the water is actively on the move, no time for mould to form. Then the second Saturday I get back late, like 3am, and a friend is staying over so we’re keeping real quiet trying to sneak in, when the door to the main flat up the stairs bursts open and two young men stumble out.
Me and my friend pin ourselves to the wall and quietly watch as they jokingly amble down the stairs and the elderly woman, in a nightgown, tells them “good job, see you Thursday”. Obviously me and my friend spend the night obsessed with what my landlord is up to and plan ahead for Thursday. The big day comes and I don’t catch anyone arriving but when I get back from a gig I wait outside, there’s cigarette butts at the bottom of the stairs and the lights are on.
I go in my room and can hear music, I need to work out what’s happening. Suddenly the adjoining door cracks open and I hear the woman say “don’t go in that one, I rented it”, it closes again. Still none the wiser.
The next day my friend makes a suggestion that solves the mystery for us. The next Thursday, I put my phone onto a selfie-stick and slowly extend it to its full height. It gallantly climbs to the first floor window, where the music pumps and the light spills, for 10 seconds it peers at the truth before returning to my grateful hands.
That’s the story of finding out my elderly landlord was growing a lot of cannabis.
Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking? is at Monkey Barrel Hive 2 from 1 to 25 August
