From their Press Release: These chart topping, multi instrumentalist record producers, have worked with everyone from Alfie Boe to Pete Townshend. Watch in awe as they squander their amazing musical talents on clever mashups, comic songs, operatic high jinx – complete with the little known house version of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Happy in the style of Vivaldi and a Cruel Britannia finale!
James Morgan and Juliette Pochin were kind enough to answer a few questions about their upcoming August run, so read on for more….
📍theSpace @ Niddry St – Upper Theatre (Round)
📅 Aug 3-15, 17-28
🕖 21:45
🕖 Running time (approx.): 1 hour
👥 Created by: Bexie Archer & Kevin Dewsbury
💰 From £10.00
🎂 12+
🎭 Wheelchair Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets
Standard beginning, tell me a little about you, your journey into performance art, and how of that leads to Music Mayhem and a Mezzo?
We’re record producers who work with a variety of artists like Alfie Boe and Pete Townshend and have written for film including the recent Operation Mincemeat. When Juliette turned 50 last October, she insisted that she was fine with it, but promptly jumped out of an aeroplane and wrote this cabaret show – so form your own conclusions!
Juliette was originally an opera singer and James a conductor, and every year we still do a Christmas Concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Juliette sings a funny song looking back at the highs and lows of the previous year (been mostly lows in recent years!) but over the 10 years we’ve done that show, that has become the bit the audience look forward to the most. So we decided people love a witty song, sung by someone with a great voice! (Juliette not me!)
Do you think you approach your show differently, having such well developed careers as producers?
It’s really fun for us to be ‘out front’ as opposed to behind the scenes as we usually are. I think as record producers we are also very focused on the music so despite all the laughs, we try to make sure everything is of the highest standard musically.
Do you see yourselves as part of a cabaret tradition? Have you any particular heroes you look to?
We still have an old LP of Victor Borge who was the original mashup King at the piano. Juliette is also a huge fan of Fascinating Aida and we will definitely catch their show while we are in Edinburgh!
Now this is going to be the show’s Edinburgh debut, have you been doing any research? Have you any concerns about cross-oceanic humour transfer?
I actually think Edinburgh audiences will find our song ‘Cruel Britannia’ funnier than our London audience! But we are also going to include a Scottish folksong Ca’ the Yowes in the show- partly because it is such a beautiful melody. Apparently, although Robbie Burns takes the credit for the lyric, it was actually written by a female poet, Isabel Pagan, in the 18th Century.
What do you have in store for the unsuspecting Edinburgh punter?
We’ll ask the audience to spot the songs/music in some of the piano mashups so without giving too much away, they’ll need a good pair of ears and a musical knowledge that goes from Vivaldi up to Pharrell Williams for some of our more unlikely mashup combinations!
Why was it important enough to you to bring the show to the Edinburgh Fringe?
If you have written a cabaret show, the best place in the world to perform it is at the Fringe, it’s a dream come true for us. We’ve played concerts everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to the Lincoln Centre in New York but we’ve never been prouder than to say we are at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
What are you most looking forward to?
The buzz of the place in August, seeing all the other shows, interacting with fun audiences who are just up for having a great time. We’re bringing our 3 kids too and they are super excited about seeing all the street performers etc
Do you have ambitions for the show beyond Edinburgh?
We’d love to tour the show in the future, we are really hoping we meet an agent who snaps it up but then we are aware there are about 4000 other shows all hoping for the same thing!
How can an audience best prepare for the show?
As a former opera singer, Juliette would suggest a vocal warm up, maybe a few scales? And I’d add some alcohol, always useful for loosening any vocal inhibitions!
What do you hope people are saying once they leave the theatre?
That they loved the music (despite some outlandish combinations!) and the singing, and that we made them laugh and cry…
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Website: https://www.morganpochin.com/196/Music-Mayhem-and-a-Mezzo