A brand new satirical comedy coming soon to a Corpus Playroom near you!
This is News to Him a new student satirical comedy written by Finlay WyerThe corps will be visiting the playroom next week from Wednesday 30 October to Saturday 2 November with the Lady Margaret players. I spoke with the show’s creator and co-director, Finlay, about his creative process and how he went about creating the show.
For an hour in the Corps newsroom, George Crudgeon presents the world with the latest satirical stories. There will be headlines, in-depth investigative reporting, interviews and parody ads. Finlay also teased us with a Cbeebies bedtime story and behind-the-scenes look as George talks about his work-life balance and the aftermath of his three-and-a-half divorces.
When asked what inspired him to write the show, Finlay said that Cambridge had a certain brand of satirical fun that he hadn’t seen before and how he felt he wanted to do something influenced by various satirical greats (Minister, citing The Onion). , and The Day Today as examples). He originally wrote a few articles for his Sixth Form school paper and decided that the George character he wrote would be really good fun on stage.
Finlay praised his team for producing the show, saying his co-stars made him laugh at the character and it became a problem. In addition to the many people involved in filming commercials and interviews, the show features several original news theme tunes Zain Sunawalla and a fantastic tech crew working on sound, projection and lighting. He also wants to take the opportunity to publicly apologize to his technical director. “Peter BakerYour sacrifice will not go unnoticed, but it will not be rewarded with money.”
When asked about his collaboration with the show’s other director, Aruba BibiFinlay says his role is to come up with bad ideas and Aruba’s is to tell him they’re bad ideas but work with him anyway. He apparently proposed a week ago to rewrite the show to become a 4-show saga where the audience participates every night, with the third night being a musical, and George canonically leaving to serve in the SAS for a year between the third night. and the fourth night, came back with a terrible scar that would never be acknowledged. However, Aruba forced him to stick to the original script. I’ll be looking forward to the sequel…
Many people may have noticed the show’s unorthodox promo, which suggests creating a real hinge profile for George: “Single newsreader/journalist looking for a studio audience.” There was a comfess about it, Finlay admits, one of the team wrote as a “desperate publicity request” but claims it came from an anonymous third party. He adds, “Anyone who’s pining for George is welcome to have him, but next week is in the Corpus Playroom (and he’s going to require his own space, I’m afraid).”
When asked about his favorite moments from the show, Finlay calls some of the videos he’s created “something really special.” He says that he especially likes to give interviews Buzz Jones Medeema’s A character like George and struggles not to laugh at his dating coach image. It also includes an interview excerpt Margaret Saundersoncurrent president of Footlights, but adds that “you’ll have to watch the show to see what he had to say.”
When asked to sum up the show in three words, Finlay sums it up: “serious, irreverent and ‘why?'”.
Buy tickets here See the show for yourself for the Corpus Playroom! Next week at 21:30 from Wednesday 30 October to Saturday 2 November.
Image credit: Lulu Fountain