Trevor Lock's living room tour takes comedy in a fresh direction
3 March 2011
Printer-friendly version
He is already known as one of the best improvisational comedians in the country, but with his Live In My Lounge Tour Trevor Lock is taking comedy off the stage and into people's homes - including Boy George's. SSP had to find out about this unique tour, so Tim Clark caught up with the comedian in his kitchen for a brief chat about the forthcoming comedy adventure.
Trevor Lock has a plan, he is to make his way into homes all over Britain, find the trinkets of hilarity which are scattered within the abodes of comedy fans the length and breadth of the country, and use them to conjure up a unique hour of mirth.
However Lock hasn’t got a ladder or even a Swiss army knife to help him gain entry to the variety of homes across the land, his plan is to commit himself to a tour of the nations living room’s for a series of unique gigs.
His new tour, titled Live In My Living, room will see the improvisation comedian joined by Chris Dangerfield and Joey Page and invited into homes across the UK with a promise to banish queues for the toilets, expensive drinks at the bar and the premise that a comedian has to stand at least 50 yards away on a formica stage to be considered a proper gig.
“We’ve had an extraordinary response,” Lock said: “We never expected it but we’re now having a show in Boy George’s living room, so its al over the place and from all walks of life, all over England.”
“We’ll go wherever people want us to go it’s now just a question of qorking out how we’re going to do it and that sort of thing.”
When SSP first heard about the living room tour at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, the plan was to take it across the world, taking in as many places as possible. While that plan may have been initially curtailed, keeping the tour within the UK hasn’t stopped Lock from thinking of bigger things in the future.
“We’re keeping it to within the UK and doing a dry run,” he says. “Seeing what the interest is, and them maybe taking it global, were not sure.
While Lock certainly isn’t the first to take comedy away from the traditional stage, the living room tour comes at a time when many comedians are looking for a way to experiement with their material and utilise a different place.
However with the closure of Laughter In Odd Places last year, which helped push boundaries in London by performing gigs in Laundrettes and museums, Lock is helping to fill the void for people who don’t want the samey atmosphere of a normal comedy gig,
“I think my comedy is quiet spontaneous and a lot of comedy clubs have that darkened room, anonymous black box status, which I don’t think really works with my kind of comedy.” Lock adds. “For me I like to go to unconventional venues where there’s things hanging on the walls and there are props to play with.”
“The idea I that there will be things on the mantleshelf, and under the sofa and that’s behind the idea, finding things in odd places and making a story of them.”
The culmination of the prop-led show is akin to through the keyhole, yet instead of trying to work out whose house it is from the list of assigned clues, the audience will be taken into a mythical world of the imagination from the very things around them. I ask Lock whether this is more an investigation into someone’s house than a comedy gig.
“Well that’s right, what one off the spin off ideas is that it’s a modern day doomsday book of the state of the nations living rooms in the United Kingdom.
“Some kind of documentary sociological living room snapshot of living room life.”
Trevor Lock’s Live In Your Living Room tour kicked off last weekend with a show in Shorditch for a man named Merlin, we wish them the best of luck with the rest of it.
For more information visit: www.lockinmylounge.com
- Printer-friendly version
- Login or register to post comments
- Send to friend
PDF version
.small width block.jpg "Up The Creek Comedy Club")
