Edinburgh Fringe Comics Present Their Own Show, “Baby Reindeer”

Two-Part Authentication is the chilling story of me, Mark Watson, trying to pay my council tax against the ferocious opposition of my local borough’s poorly designed website. Over eight episodes, we get into the head of our tortured protagonist as he repeatedly fails to log in even though his password (the name of his former cat) has not changed since Cobweb’s death in 2006. In an early episode, the council claims to have sent Watson three separate emails to reset his log-in, but none arrive. Things climax when Watson finally manages to pay £171.16 on his credit card and feels a brief flicker of relief. The show gains a huge cult following in spite of being hours of footage of one man sitting alone at his laptop, swearing.

I’ve been lucky enough to mostly avoid trauma in my life, but I did have a tough day filming Celebrity Storage Hunters back in 2015, so maybe a show based on that? It starts with me getting tipsy in a hotel bar the night before, then getting up early to stand in a field in Cambridgeshire in the pouring rain. It ends with me crying in a pink cycle helmet, comforted by a celebrity chef. Admittedly, it’s not a very compelling story, with little tension or jeopardy, but people could have fun speculating about the identity of the celebrity chef (Ainsley Harriott).

A struggling comedian battles loneliness by signing up to a friendly online streaming service. Things turn sour when he realizes he’s spent most of his time scrolling through menus. After yet another heartwarming comedy, spurious documentary and his 17th rewatch of Friends, a moment of clarity causes him to cancel his subscription and regain control. Then the emails start… “Don’t leave us,” “Special offer to come back,” “YOU’RE MISSING OUT!” Can our hero re-establish a meaningful and happy relationship with the real world, or will he be dragged back into the catatonic boredom vortex of algorithms? Stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Garrett Millerick and Rylan Clark as Netflix.

My Netflix show would be about how getting diagnosed as autistic by a heckler completely changed how I view life and, frankly, heckles. They weren’t very soothing as random abuse, but who knew a heckle could transform one’s self-image? It’s my fault for doing a show about how I don’t enjoy the things I’m supposed to, and rhetorically asking the audience. Well, I got my answer. My autism is represented in a montage where I walk around a Warhammer shop frowning but gradually come to enjoy various tabletop games.

Everyone loves Baby Reindeer, but what else does everyone love? The Traitors. And Bake Off. Which is why I’ve combined all three and present Reindeer Bake Off for Traitors, in which people charged with treason compete against live reindeers (and their handlers, I’m not insane) to make the best cakes. I’ve seen TikToks where a cow interrupts a man while he’s cooking. Trust me, this will be huge. The cakes are judged by a baby. If the baby enjoys them, the contestant goes through. If the baby cries, they go home. If the baby craps themselves, it goes to a tie-break of three tasks set by Claudia Winkleman. Everyone wears monk gowns, including the reindeers.

As a teenager in New Zealand, I was cooking sausages outside a store to raise money for a school trip when I saw Barnaby Weir, lead singer of my favorite band, the Black Seeds. I’d been at their concert the night before, rocking out to their dub hits. I waved him over: “I cooked you a sausage mate!” He looked down, his eyes going wide. I’d carved the letters B-A-R-N-A-B-Y into the sausage, like a murderer. I grinned like a lunatic, brandishing the knife. Following a long pause, he said, “I might leave it,” backing away. Maybe worth an episode, although not a full series.

Age 14, my best friend was a cow called Bramble who spoke only in vowels because I grew up on a remote Exmoor farm with no wifi. My dad wasn’t a natural farmer so would rent a barn to strangers if they agreed to help control his unruly sheep, who were always dining alfresco on the B3224. I remember one of them, Angie, vividly because she smelled of whisky and life experience, smoked Marlboro Reds and told me to “never trust a man who owned a dog.” Angie lived with us for two years until we returned from a family holiday and she’d vanished, along with my dad’s Vauxhall Astra. Turns out, she’d been sent to prison for stabbing her ex-husband with a knitting needle straight through the heart. So, my pitch is Let’s Get Angie. I’ll play the cow.

Last year I went on TV in Australia and made a joke I’ve been making for years, which I stand by. Within 24 hours, I was the center of a media storm. Priests denounced me. Protests called for my blood. Gangs of black-clad men stalked me with big wooden crucifixes. When the death threats arrived, so did six bomb-detection dogs and the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Unit. Welcome to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets The Fugitive, although with my luck, I’ll be played by Andrew Scott, while I’m just an intrusive extra with no makeup.

The epic tale of a hero who moves to a rural community and signs up to edit the Parish newsletter but ends up arguing from dawn until dusk with pensioners because he refuses to offer the Church cut-price advertising. A quarter-page ad costs £2.50 per annum, yet he will not yield. An intense secondary plot line features countryside caliber internet speeds and how nobody uses postcodes.

Christopher and Elizabeth are siblings who get mistaken for twins in spite of a 7-year age gap. Elizabeth, the youngest, is the “How Does She Do It?” poster girl, whilst Chris can barely pair his socks. Join the queer siblings as they cohabit a small two-bedroom flat in East London with stories of heartbreak, loss, identity, and: “Who’s going to take the bins out? Well, it has to be one of us.”

I crush really easily so each episode I fall in love with a new person: a friend, co-worker, the guy at Asda who remembers my name, and imagine the whole narrative of our future life together.

When I hit puberty, my voice dropped and I developed boobs. My father is a manly man, full of verbose road rage. I’ve inherited my mother’s giant tits and bunions. My life has been filled with moments of breast-related hilarity. Swimming age 14, another kid shouting: “He’s got bigger tits than my mum,” and my friend replying: “He’s got a bigger dick as well”. Wearing baggy jumpers to camouflage my protruding chest. This recently changed when I got into a relationship with someone who said I didn’t have to live this way. As a straight man, gender-affirming surgery was life-changing. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still a massive tit.

An unsuspecting accountant, Emma, becomes the target of a wild bet among seven up-and-coming performers. They book shows to see who can get Emma to attend the most. Things soon escalate as the performers pull increasingly outrageous stunts. Emma’s life is filled with unexpected ballets, magic tricks, flash mobs, and comedy acts. As the bet intensifies, the performers become more invasive, leading to dramatic confrontations and ethical dilemmas. A dark comedy exploring our lust for fame, ambition, and obsession.

Spring Day, a 13-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, is invited to a church pizza party by a classmate. Needing to escape her mentally ill mother, she is love-bombed into joining a fundamentalist Christian cult. Convinced that God wants her to become a missionary, she joins an even more fundamentalist Christian cult, but is reprimanded for not having enough faith to heal herself of cerebral palsy. She realizes she will never be the beauty the church requires to “give birth to the next generation of Christian soldiers” and leaves for standup. It’s a natural fit since the church has trained her well to work among sex offenders.

Viv arrives in San Francisco in 2015 as a fresh, 22-year-old college grad knowing nothing about crypto and moves in with 14 crypto bros where the rules of society don’t apply. Bitcoin and AI girlfriends will rule the world. When bitcoin jumps to $20,000, Viv decides the boys are right and does whatever it takes to become a crypto bro: drink Soylent instead of food, live in the Burning Man desert for 10 days. Should she invest in crypto? How far will she go?

At the stage in his career where he recognizes his small number of fans before they recognize him, Ollie Horn (neediness of David Brent, intensity of the Child Catcher) obsessively goes city to city and bothers people until they buy tickets to his tour. A bit like Baby Reindeer, except my comedy career remains in tiny fringe venues.

On my way to the Melbourne comedy festival, my flight was delayed overnight in Qatar. At the bus transfer, Little Green Bag played through the airport speakers as the bus filled with a Reservoir Dogs-style array of characters: a 28-year-old French-Algerian standup, a sweet Englishman called George, and Julianne, a fierce schoolteacher. I pictured myself at our hotel, lounging in a bikini in an infinity pool. Instead, we arrived at a hotel in an area best described as Qatar’s Hounslow. It didn’t matter. Over the next 12 hours, Julianne and I became the best of friends. Have I seen The Breakfast Club? I lived it.

When shy 10-year-old Maeve is kicked out of school due to her learning disabilities, her retired existential psychologist grandfather becomes her home teacher and decides the best way to teach her is to take her on the road through what he calls the Museum of Beautiful Life. Lessons in maths and grammar are soon replaced by nights in sketchy motels and playing bingo with a group of nuns. Yet something odd is happening. As Pop Pop is showing Maeve the real world, he is also slowly slipping into complete fantasy that makes their adventures even more absurd and wonderful.

The true story about how I crash-landed in Svalbard and found a baby reindeer abandoned in the snow. As I nursed it back to health, I thought I was saving him, but turns out he was saving me. A deeply personal story about friendship, family, and how one man can survive a harsh Arctic winter eating a surprisingly nutritious baby reindeer.

Source: The Guardian, Guardian, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival