This piece originally appeared in The Demon newspaper issue 107. An interview with a comedy group I subsequently joined. Odd.
Dan Nicholas’ Conversation Garden is a series of YouTube videos and live shows starring Comedy Society alumni Dan Nicholas, Jack Britton and Lewys Holt.
We sit in the study, which contains a Bionicle, a banjo, a mannequin head with foil in her hair, a couple of skateboards, and a mixing desk. In the centre of the room is a table around which the CG Team have been studiously working on the upcoming show. It’s an odd sight to see when you consider the anarchic nature of the show.
I’m unsure how to describe Conversation Garden due to it being un-pigeon-hole-able, It’s a chat show, but to just call it a chat show seems reductive, so I ask them what they’d say to someone who had never seen the show before.
L: “Several things do happen in it which are sketchy.”
D: “It’s sketchy, but they’re not sketches.”
J: “It’s sketchy about being sketchy.”
L: “They’re unconventional sketches.”
J: “It’s like a chat show with a meta narrative.”
D: “It’s a show about a show.”
J: “It’s about us struggling to do the show.”
Me: “Where did the characters you play come from? Dan’s character already existed as his stand-up persona, but how about Lewys and Jack?”
L: “We put Jack in a parka coat and he looked like a crazy man, so we decided he’d be a crazy man. Which left me as the straight man.”
J: “We separate the personas in the videos and the live shows.”
D: “The characters on stage are still weird.”
J: “Just a different branch of weird. I’m more psychotic (in the videos).”
Me: “On stage there’s one-upmanship between Lewys and Dan, does that exist in real life? Do you (Lewys and Jack) resent it being called Dan Nicholas’ Conversation Garden?”
There is a collective moan-laughter hybrid (Maughter? Loan?).
J: “I think the only time I’ve resented it is when the show’s gone really well and afterwards people only want to speak to Dan. People assume that Dan’s written the whole thing.”
D: “I never try and take all the credit or anything.”
L: “It’s not that you try to take the credit, it’s just the fact that your name is there and people will give you the credit.”
J: “We’ve always, from the beginning, said it’s good that it’s called ‘Dan Nicholas’ Conversation Garden’ because Dan already has an established respect in the Leicester comedy scene and the broader comedy scene, so that’s good, and the flip side is; if it fails miserably, we can just blame Dan!”
Me: “You’ve moved house since you first started filming the Conversation Garden videos, how big a factor was the garden when you were picking your new house?”
D: “For me it was like what did the garden look like first, and then the house.”
L: “Which is really frustrating actually, because this house isn’t that great.”
J: “What was nice about this garden was that they left loads of crap. Construction stuff, an old TV, cones and signs and things.”
The main feature of the garden is a large mattress stencilled with the words ‘Conversation Garden’. The mattress wasn’t there when they moved in.
J: “We, um, ‘took’ the mattress from down the road.”
D: “We got some friends to help and we were putting it in here and the next door neighbour came out and our friend just went ‘All right, we’re just stealing a mattress!’”
Me: “Tell me about the next show and the lead up to it.”
D: “There’s a campaign for presidency and who will stay in the show: Lewys or Jack?”
J: “The last show ended with Dan manipulating us into fighting with each other. We’re both going to be campaigning and there’s going to be a Facebook poll.”
D: “The results will be announced at the show.”
Me: “Can I ask why on the booking page of Upstairs at The Western, is the page for that show in French?
L: (French accent) No.
Me: If you could become a household name but lose creative control over Conversation Garden, or maintain control but never get that big, what would you do?
L: “I’d always assumed we’d be allowed to do what we want.”
J: “I think we’d have to find some level of compromise. You (Dan) being you, would not allow someone else to run the show!”
L: “You’re far too dogmatic.”
D: “Thanks guys.”
J: “We have talked about what it would be like as a TV show, but we haven’t thought about producers getting their dirty fingers all up in our grill.”
D: “They ruin stuff, TV people.”
L: “I think I’d rather not have that (the fame).”
D: “It could end up as a live, real ‘cult’ thing. Not as in evil cult...”
L: “I thought you meant underground ceremonies and robes.”
D: “We can do that too.”
Me: “You’ve previously worked with a heavy metal band and some burlesque performers. Are there any more interesting collaborations coming up?”
J: “We’re taking part in a dance improvisation night that a group Lewys is part of called Quickshift are putting on.”
L: “Some lecturers of dance at DMU have set up this improvisation collective and they do these monthly nights at Embrace Arts. One of the lecturers has decided to branch out the meaning of improvisation by getting comedy involved.”
D: “That’s on the 24th of November.”
Me: “Forgive me
if I’m wrong, but Lewys, are you the only who can dance?”
L: “Jack did a joint honours Dance course at DMU. And Dan actually.. the way he moves is very interesting in terms of contemporary dance.”
D: “Really?”
L: “He’s got a really weird way of moving. It’s not a conventional style of moving. Like your lunges and the way you dance is like... it’s great. In terms of experimental choreography he is a resource for me.”
D: “Are you stealing my moves?”
L: “I’ve been stealing his moves for a year. He has no rhythm, don’t get me wrong, he has no sense of timing or any way of doing what people what people what traditionally call good looking dance.”
Me: “Is there anything else you guys would like to talk about?”
L: “The Conversation Garden movie, the feature length film”
J: “post apocalyptic”
D: “three hour epic all set in the garden”
L: “Imagine Citizen Kane mixed with The Expendables with the longevity of Fallout 3.”
J: “It takes fifteen hours to experience it.”
L: “B****y awful film actually.”
D: “I don’t know why we did it.”
And with that I leave the strange world of the study of the house of the Conversation Garden. Like Dan Nicholas’ Conversation Garden on Facebook and go to www.conversationgarden.com to find out about their live shows and to watch their Youtube series.