There’s a moment at the start of Different Party, Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan’s clowning two-hander about a day in an office, which really encapsulates something. Wakenshaw – pale, beanpole thin, about seven feet tall with his hair improbably moussed, his rangy limbs in a too-tight suit – stands across from Duncan – “the swarthy one”, short(er), broad and strong, draped in an over-sized suit, fists balled expectantly. He reaches over and gently wipes a spot from Duncan’s face, a gesture of extraordinary tenderness which, I discover, flows from an extraordinary depth of two lives and careers intertwined.
But we’ll return to that. This year’s run of Different Party is something of a victory lap. Last seen in Edinburgh in 2017, the show won Best Comedy at the 2024 New Zealand Comedy Festival (both Duncan and Wakenshaw are Kiwis). What began in 2017 as a sequence of what Duncan describes to me as “playtimes” is now as tight and joyful a piece of clowning as you’re likely to see. Briefcases become rowdy (and randy) dogs; paperwork becomes a breeding ground for visual puns; coffee time is a near religious oasis of chill. Ideas are given horizontal space to develop into something several steps removed from its origin. There’s a chemistry between Duncan and Wakenshaw which alchemises the all-too-predictable humdrum of office life into something delightfully unexpected. Nearly a decade on from its inception, it’s tight as hell.
But it’s Fringe 2025 now and the pair are responsible for four shows between them. My assignment is to stick with them for a day, see the barrage of shows and speak to them both. And so, after a bonus extra of seeing Wakenshaw the previous day at Piggy Time, John Norris’ late night weird comedy showcase, our day begins.
Monsterrrr! is Wakenshaw’s first kids show, bar an early excursion for him and (surprise, surprise) Barnie Duncan in NZ over 20 years ago. In it, he plays a semi-verbal, clumsy but well-meaning grotesque, whose surfeit of emotions stomps over boundaries with a gusto that’s only matched by the remorse which follows. There’s a message in this conceit (emotions are imperfect but fine) which Wakenshaw delightfully doesn’t let get in the way of the entertainment, being led by the effusive responses of the kids. At one point he’s happy to dispense with the narrative to allow a game of rock, paper, scissors to take off. You can see his clowning in full flight here, toying with the frustration and relief as he responds clumsily to audience suggestions. He also treads the line between nice and naughty beautifully. I brought along our 12 and nine-year olds, whose monkey business was met with a response from Wakenshaw which was, for them, a shock and a highlight. “Was he meant to do that?” sputtered.
Well, was he? “Ha! I love how naughty it is!” says Wakenshaw. “But the monster also understands now that it’s a naughty thing. I think that came maybe a little bit after a few shows of me just delightfully pulling the finger to the audience. I was like, oh, actually, I have to comment that this is not a good thing to do!”
Speaking to Wakenshaw after the show, toothy prosthetics removed, I can’t help but wonder why on earth he’s attempting the near dawn to dusk Fringe feat. He’s reflective on the physical and mental challenge – indeed, he’s been working with a PT in the run up – but manages a convincing logic which centres around (can you guess) “an excuse to hang out with Barnie!”. Wakenshaw, you see, lives in Prague; Duncan in New Zealand. Bringing an award-winning show helps the economics and practicalities stack up so they can both make new shows and re-unite the clans. “I’m doing Different Party to bring Barnie. I’m doing Hot Chips, because that’s actually the show I want to be doing with Barnie,” he says.
“It sounds ludicrous,” Duncan echoes later. “It’s kind of like the only way that we could actually hang out and make a new thing!”
It soon becomes clear why the geographical dislocation is such a burden to overcome. The pair started together aged 20 as apprentice stage managers on a devised show. By the end of the run, the pair had a double act in the show and alternate stagehands needed to be found. “We [used to] spend all day making shit like that, and we got really good. Telepathy. That kind of thing!” Duncan says.
There are so many reasons why the pair make for perfect foils. One great example is their shared outlook on, well, art. Wakenshaw didn’t want to do his show just anywhere. His director, Fabian Sattler, steeped in the theatre of his native Germany, hadn’t had the Edinburgh experience. “I said ‘you have to come and see what other people are making internationally’. Here, everything’s done with heart. Well, not everything but, y’know.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Duncan after his solo show, Oooky Pooky. “People really come here with their heart and soul and give it that fucking everything!” he says. “I’ve done six Fringes. But it’s been really life changing in terms of my making practice. The things we’ve seen here have been formative. Things that I’d still carry with me. I’ve gotten so many little snippets that I draw on for flavour or spice, like ‘no, don’t do it like that. Remember that thing that you saw in there? Pick that!’”
Oooky Pooky (a NZ word that links creepiness and masculinity) certainly has that spice. It’s “a nice example of what my style is now,” he says, “where I like to still be physical, but I like to do talking. But I also like to wash them together.”
Oooky Pooky brings together a series of creepy men, most incredibly a clairvoyant called (really) Michael Jackson who gave Duncan’s mum an astrological reading of her newborn, the cassette of which he later found. Recordings of this icky, funny bunkum pepper the show, collage-like, alongside other unpleasant, powerful men – the guru in an ashram his parents joined, and Russell Brand particularly. Duncan’s act outs are a buffoonish foil to the earnest, rotten alphas. Except there’s a catch: Duncan’s clowning puts him in a position of power and, over the course of an hour he’s forced, bit by bit, to relive an event which closes the distance between himself and the other brutes.
“Back in 2017, when clowning was really big, there were dudes that were becoming little gurus; hot clown boys! And they took advantage of that. I was putting these people on pedestals. And when you put a dude on a pedestal, inevitably, they will start seeing how far they can go with that power.” If that sounds heavy, it’s not. It’s artfully done in a way that avoids either self-apology or egotistical self-recrimination. The buffoonery is very funny. And for a show which feels like it follows each thread to see where it goes, the whole is super structured.
Which is the opposite of Hot Chips, a show which didn’t really exist before opening night, and represents both a continuation and an escalation of their working method. When I saw it on opening night it had, well, nothing at the start. And by the end it had, well, something. In some ways, watching it develop over the run could be the litmus test of the unique artistic relationship of this just delightful pair. “I think in our relationship, I always feel like Barnie is the spark,” says Wakenshaw. “He’s like a flint. So he’ll have an initial idea, and then I’m an accelerant, like, petrol. So I can grow the idea and then we sort of grow it together.”
Monsterrrr!, Assembly George Square Gardens, until 17 Aug (not 11), 12pm
Different Party, Assembly George Square Studios, until 17 Aug (not 11), 5.10pm
Oooky Pooky, Assembly Roxy, until 24 Aug (not 11), 7.05pm
Hot Chips, Underbelly, Cowgate, until 24 Aug (not 11), 11.10pm