Meet three comedy couples collaborating at the Fringe this year

Don't be surprised if you see Ada Player and Bron Waugh walking in circles around a park, conversing in silly voices. That's just how they create characters. They met while studying theatre at Bristol University, joined the sketch troupe Bristol Revunions, then moved in together, but only began shooting videos with each other during the Covid lockdown.

Since then, they've co-created the Bafta-nominated Channel 4 sitcom pilot Peaked, starring Player as part of a love triangle; won a BBC Comedy Collective bursary and are sharing their absurdist character comedy showcase, Ada & Bron: The Origin of Love, at the Fringe.

The couple's process is usually to “start with funny voices, build the characters, ask what's the emotional story and then add the okes” explains Player. Incorporating eight or so relationships, their festival debut is “a bit dark and twisted” but “done in a really campy, over-the-top manner” Waugh adds. “Every character says something sincere and different about love in quite a weird way”. Featuring affairs, James Bond, wolf and witch congress and a sex robot, it's “a rollercoaster” Player suggests. “But it's feelgood, it ends in joy.”

Featuring affairs, werewolves, James Bond and dancing robots, it's “a rollercoaster” Player suggests. “But it's feelgood, it ends in joy.”

Indirectly inspired by Aristophanes' theory of soulmates, via the Mika album of the same name, The Origin of Love also features their Revunions colleague Ed Lyness on piano. And the couple admit to a fascination with awkward “third wheels”.

“I don't know why that is” Waugh confesses. “Because we're in an insular bubble as a couple I guess, it adds danger and excitement. Player agrees. “Because we live this duo dynamic, having a third energy shakes it up, really gives it drama. There's tremblings underneath all of our relationships. Whether that be a third person or just the outside world intruding.”

Complementing each other, clown-trained Player “can go on stage with no safety net and perform with nothing”, whereas her film graduate boyfriend likes “the story set”, he doesn't “ever waste the audience's time.“

Waugh smiles. “I'm more relaxed improvising with Ada though. I check my brain and we can just play in the moment.”

Ada & Bron: The Origin of Love, Pleasance Courtyard, 11pm, until 24 August

Marnina Schon and Micah O'Konis

When Marnina Schon and Micah O'Konis' wedding venue was destroyed by wildfire, they quickly began composing. “There was this sign, 'Welcome to Farnsworth Park', behind it burnt out rubble. That's kind of funny” O'Konis reflects of the awful omen. “We felt we should process it through a song.”

Premiering Our Wedding Venue Burned Down at a firefighters' fundraiser in Los Angeles was “delicate” Schon admits. Yet “emotional”.

Incorporating the Fringe into their trans-European honeymoon, Couplet, as they call themselves, “workshopped” their debut and wedding concurrently. “Which I wouldn't wish on anyone” Schon sighs.

Classically trained musicians, they appear to have few boundaries onstage, bitching harmoniously about their couples counsellor. Yet dirty laundry is only aired on a “lyric by lyric basis” Schon maintains.

Writing their show, Honey Honey Moon Moon, “I was pushing to go deeper, really reveal dark things about ourselves and get into a real fight in front of the audience” O'Konis confesses. “But we quickly realised that's not fun for us and it's not fun for them.”

Schon agrees. “We don't want the audience to feel they should be getting paid as therapists. Even if we do make an audience member give us therapeutic advice at one point.”

Recently described as the “it couple of the LA Jewish/comedy/music/queer world”, violinist Schon, pronouns (she/they), and guitarist O'Konis (they/them), “unpack our intersectionality” in the song People Think We're Straight.

“The universe handed us a low point with the fire. But we got our happy ending making the wedding our narrative arc,” Schon relates. “That actually made it a lot easier to explain our identities. Because planning a wedding, you're thinking about how much gender you include in the ceremony.”

With Schon the more pessimistic “performer-writer” with a “musical theatre background” and O'Konis a more easygoing, “writer-performer”, “a little bit more indie rock”, their voices “didn't sound so good together” when they began dating nine years ago. “We didn't have a great blend,” the latter recalls. Yet over time they've prioritised the double act. “And we've definitely merged.”

Couplet: Honey Honey Moon Moon, Assembly Rooms, 6.25pm, until 24 August

Joz Norris and Miranda Holms

It isn't coincidence that Joz Norris' characters are darker and more intense since he got together with fellow comedy writer Miranda Holms. “Neither of us are good at small talk” she admits.

“Storytelling, filmmaking, comedy, that's what I'm preoccupied by. I wouldn't find it easy being in a relationship with someone who didn't feel the same, who wouldn't just commit to silly things”. For the committedly experimental Norris, meanwhile, performing is easier “knowing I'm accepted, liked and appreciated by someone who gets me.

“I've realised monsters, idiots, morons, braggarts and egotistical narcissists are what I find funniest. I can be the most flawed versions of myself and not need affirmation that I'm a nice person.”

They met in early 2020, moved in together later that year and have channelled their combined energies into short films, Radio 4 sitcoms, hosting Eggbox, their comedy script showcase, and Norris' Fringe shows. There's some irony in his latest Edinburgh hour, You Wait, Time Passes, focusing on a character obsessing over his magnum opus while neglecting his loved ones. “He's me if I really pushed the workaholism” Norris observes. “Driving everybody away while slaving over something he believes is important, but is clearly just a waste of time.”

However, it's Holms who confesses to being the “perfectionist” in their partnership. With “maybe a more visual, narrative brain … Joz is good at just getting stuff done, deciding that 'this' is the 'thing', this is how it's going to happen, and pushing through.

“We have very opposite ways of approaching comedy but we kind of meet in this happy medium of the two extremes.”

Norris agrees. “We've built a working language together. And being together, it feels like we have more licence to be creatively belligerent with each other”.

Holms is credited as script consultant on Norris' show. And he reckons the abiding myth of the “lone genius” comic is increasingly being challenged.

“I used to know so many whose girlfriends or partners were effectively working on their shows, in constant discussions about them, and they weren't credited at all. But I find it hard to make anything good without her eye, it always elevates it.”

Joz Norris: You Wait, Time Passes, Pleasance Dome 7.10pm, until 24 August

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