Performers: The Lampoons
Photograph by: Headshot Toby
Show: House on Haunted Hill
Venue: Pleasance Dome (10Dome)
Promoter: RBM Comedy

Tell me about your Edinburgh show.

This could well be the most ridiculously Bizarre Late-night show at the fringe. A thumpingly hilarious non-stop Comedy-Horror; the likes of which have never been seen. Plus, you get water pistols, ping pong balls and a Ghost Cat!

Tell me about your first gig.

Every Year we re-imagine a wonderfully awful B-Movie for Halloween. The first ever show threw together was a ridiculous reincarnation of ‘ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES’ – I’m sure you all know that one….

Do you have any rituals before going on stage?

Generally we like to hide one of Tina’s props so she walks around asking everyone if they’ve seen it until eventually screaming and punching one of us in the neck.

Tell me about your best and worst review.

Oooh Juicy, so the worst review was a corker. We won’t mention who, but a stout gentleman arrived with an old brief case and note paper, which we knew may not end well after he rejected the ping pong balls we give out to the audience (for secret reasons) needless to say he opened the review with “I’m not sure what I walked into, but there was aimless laughing for no reasons that I could compute.” Also he hated our snake puppet but that was hit and miss! Best Reviews have always come from a lovely lady called Liz Dwyer who randomly caught our first show and has always given us greatly specific feedback!

During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?

Well yes. What we make is simply the delusions of our four imaginations, we find it fascinating what reviewers loved or hated about our creation!

How do you feel about reviewers generally?

Reviewers are great! (I have to say that right?!) But seriously, they see such an intense amount of shows and turn around those bags of opinions into very very useful tools for us as performers! SO AMEN.

In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?  

I think I would be a lunatic to accuse anyone of being a criminal for speaking out on something they thought was, for them, humour. If we go by this rule – why do we still have an orange man in charge of America! House on Haunted Hill also demands you to be open minded and not easily offended.

Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?

Nope. Soz. But you have to be ready for anyone or everyone to dislike what you classify as ‘Comedy’.

Have you ever gone too far?

We will always go too far. In the rehearsal room at least. Then my fellow clowns will bring me back to earth when we start hitting the “baby in a fire” territory.

Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.

When you bring an audience into a room we have judge there level of involvement and build them up to bring them into our f$%king weird world. Very occasionally they sit down, tuck in a napkin and get ready to eat a weird f$%k Pie.

We love those crowds.