Dr Brown has been gracing the Pull The Other One stage since way back in 2008 with his very surreal and endlessly interesting approach to physical comedy. Always eager to push boundaries and with an unquestionable desire to simply make people laugh, and more importantly to have fun with people – or as he likes to put it – fuck with them. It’s no surprise that he’s asked to come back time and time again.
I was going to introduce the interview describing our extensive search for a New Zealand owned Coffee Shop near Goodge Street, which involved a lot of circles and a disappointing end. However when me and Dr Brown – real name Phil Burgers – finally sat down, what ensued was an in depth conversation and fascinating insight into his career and the reasons behind exactly why he simply loves to bring joy to people. So I’ll skip the coffee quest and let you enjoy part one of the interview…
When did you first get to know Martin and Viv?
When I first moved to London in 2008 I was looking on the Chortle website and Viv had put an advertisement out for Pull The Other One saying she was looking for small acts. So I sent an email telling them about myself and she told me to come down and say hi. So I went down, said hi and asked to do a sort bit, so I did it and it went well, and then came back a lot after that. At the time I was applying everywhere on the Chortle website, which was hell, just like prostituting yourself on the web and doing shit gigs. But this happened to be a good one so it was a nice thing to have happened from such a shitty experience.
There’s also the fact that from an ad on the internet you don’t know what on earth you’ll turn up to on the night…
Yea, but something attracted me to PTOO, Viv had specified alternative acts. I think at the time I was like please, please let me do five minutes. Then Martin backstage was telling me I could not go over five minutes, because obviously we didn’t know eachother at this point. But I did it and I fucking stormed it! (Laughs)
What was you doing before you moved to London?
I went to theatre/clown school Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris. At that point I had been a bicycle tour guide around Europe so I went back to that job after studying. Then I went to live with my brother just outside of London while working in a call centre and then summer time came so I did the bicycle tours again, and then did Edinburgh in-between, doing the Free Fringe 25 minute show. After this I moved out of my brothers and found my own place, acted in some stuff, tutored then went back to the bicycle tours again because that was the thing that was allowing me to live here and then I was just gigging all the time. Then I did Fringe Festival again, then the next Free Fringe and that’s when I started to do an hour long set. Then more stuff started to come from doing an hour and so on and so forth.
I suppose at this point you were just putting yourself out there and seeing what the response was?
Yea, but not just seeing what the response was, seeing how I could develop because I only had five minutes when I moved here. Gaulier gave me all the tools to construct something, but I hadn’t constructed anything. So I was just applying all the tools and making the construction, which is now a lot more solid than it was when I first left. And now I’m just interior decorating, designing and building a new structure on the side because I have become good at using the tools, they allow you to refine your skill.
Do you find it harder on the circuit due to the fact that you’re more of an obscure act, far flung from a joke teller?
No, it’s not harder. Although I don’t know, I’ve never really told jokes…actually I have, but jokes are really intellectual, more heady and clever. And I’m just bored by that, I don’t get excited thinking of a joke, the only jokes I get excited about are bad ones so I have fun telling bad jokes that aren’t funny. It’s just fun for me playing physically with the audience. Physicality can be funny, or it cannot, the same way a joke can be. Usually if it makes me giggle then I think it can make other people giggle because ultimately that is what you are sharing. You’re sharing your excitement or joy about something, and when that joy is pure people feed off of other people’s joy. If you see a kid having a good time then you kind of have a good time, or if you see a dog running around a park it makes you feel good. If you see people dancing then you feel good about that so ultimately that’s what you want to create. You’re giving pleasure by experiencing.
Physical comedy in some ways doesn’t rely on a crowd really getting the joke, in terms of understanding an intellectual pun, and this in many ways allows people to get into a performance more…
But some people still don’t get it at all, there still is an element of intellectually “getting it”. Although I think the people that do get it, don’t try to. They just let themselves enter and people that don’t get it are trying to get it. But it’s like no, you don’t need to get it, there’s nothing to get. It’s almost like more of an emotional response. The best kind of comedians – ones like Nick Sun – gets this emotional response. Sometimes I’ll just scream when watching him, it’s more primal, It’s hard to achieve but it’s raw primal laughter, as opposed to sitting back and understanding it while laughing with your brain. Which is another way to do it but I’ m more interested in comedians that make me scream like in a rock concert or something. I don’t mean their rock stars but you just want that same raw energy, the same primal shit. If you can get that in comedy then it takes it away from being an intellectual thing, it becomes more physical and almost emotional. Which it could never probably achieve as music does, music will never inspire laughter as much as comedy but the same way music can inspire crying or dancing, the same with laughter. If you can just inspire that same raw purity that dancing does in laughter then its more interesting, to me.
You interact with the audience quite a lot; do you have a certain aim to bring people out of their comfort zones?
No there’s no aim, it’s just what happens when I go onstage. It’s not so manipulated, it’s just when I’m onstage I want to talk to people; I want to touch them and hold them. It’s a very natural impulse to want to connect physically with my audience. And then I like to tease them and fuck with them, just because I like to fuck with people. And that’s the point when it starts to take people out of their comfort zone. I don’t have so many boundaries – I do of course – but I like to play with those things on stage. Maybe it just gets people’s attention more than anything.
I suppose it instantly gets more of a response from the audience?
Yea, to be honest it’s probably an easy way out. It almost guarantees me a response; it’s almost a safety method from my point. Being like OK there’s no response so I’m going to take them on stage because that’s going to guarantee me the response. It’s more of a selfish thing; it’s not fair to an extent. Sometimes I’ll give clown workshops and if anyone ever comes to the audience it’s always their last resort, they start to bring them in when what they are doing up on stage isn’t working. I always tell them don’t go to the audience, you’ve got to find it on your own up there – so it’s very hypercritical of me. But I’m also using it, I take the crowd – but I don’t take them for the sake of it. I construct something totally new with them so it becomes a piece of material itself, if you see my full show I do things with the audience that are really constructed bits. My impulse to go to the crowd is out of desperation and panic so I bring them in, but once they’re on stage with me I really try to construct it. So even though it’s a weakness to get them there in the first place I turn it into a strength later on by creating a real magical scene ultimately with them – hopefully.
You can get more of a response from the audience as a whole doing this, because it’s one of them on stage. Making them become part of the show perhaps?
Well that’s it; if I continue to do it I don’t want it to be because I’m weak. I want to do it because I know it’s a solid choice. But I do think without doing it then it would affect my show. But even if I don’t bring them on, I will also acknowledge them, there’s no fourth wall in the stuff that I do. Even if I don’t bring them on they will still feel like they are in it because the moment somebody makes a noise I’ll look at them.
How do you react to people acknowledging you as an internationally renowned performer?
I don’t give a shit about that to be honest; this shit could go to hell any day now. Next year I’ll do a show and people will be like this dude is shit! So I don’t want to get too attached to it. I’m really appreciative to the fact that people like what I’m doing and it receives respect, which makes me happy. But I mean pressure, yea sure I feel a little bit of pressure from it but if anything I want to have the freedom in every gig that I do, to never be asked to come back again. The next show I do I’m almost inviting people to be like, this is the fucking worst show, this guy has failed horribly. That’s what success can do, to put pressure on you to keep creating good work. But my way of combating that pressure is to just try to fail almost, to seek failure and to have the freedom to fail. Because when you have that freedom it’s joyous, you’re doing it out of pleasure and not a need to be good. I just want to work from that place.
In many ways going out always trying to better yourself and pushing to get into bigger venues and be asked back for more could seem like work…
Absolutely, if I want a job then I’ll get a job, but this is something different. I don’t want to play the job game, I’m doing this because I believe we should play more, and whatever we are playing we are not thinking about being good, we are just thinking about having a good time playing. I probably was a victim of that before and I’m fighting it because I’ve experienced the enslavement. Like when I did PTOO the first time, being told to do it in less than five minutes, having to pull out my best shit because I want these people to invite me back. Now I’m probably at a point where I feel like I had to go through that to prove myself.
You need to go through that to create the avenues in which to perform in, so you have an audience…
Yea, because if not it comes out as arrogance – if you’re just going out with the attitude that you don’t care what people think. It’s a very fine line, because you don’t give a fuck, but you actually do. If you just don’t give a fuck then you’re an arrogant dick and people will see that and they won’t like you. I don’t give a fuck but at the same time I want to give you something, I genuinely want to make you laugh, I don’t give a fuck if you don’t, but I want to! And I am hurt if you don’t but I don’t want to be a slave, like oh I didn’t make you laugh – oh no, you’re not going to ask me back, you think I’m a bad comedian… Ultimately people in comedy want your humility; they don’t want to see an arrogant guy up there. And maybe that is my danger zone now, but I actually do give a fuck. But also I don’t want to prove anything, before I had to prove myself and now this success – if you will – is that people acknowledge me as a decent performer, so I’m like cool, I no longer have to prove myself to them anymore that I am decent. I can keep playing that game and try and prove to them that I’m better or that I’m improving but I’m done with that. That’s why I’m happy if this thing goes to shit, I’m ok because the proof game is tough and not so fun. And now I don’t want to prove I just want to play, and when you’re playing you don’t care about proving.
A lot of people would see this time as a chance to build more, to prove themselves further up the ladder so to speak, to then get bigger and bigger but that gets away from the point of wanting to give people a good time every night, putting focus on your own career…
Yea you’re just doing it for yourself. Obviously there was an element of just doing it for myself in the beginning to make a living. I’ve just arrived at a point where I can make a living doing it so it’s experimental for me – because I’ve never done it – to just have a good time. But that’s okay because I don’t want to play the proving game anymore, it’s exhausting. It becomes too much about you, and maybe you have to do that but there is a point where you think, when do you stop proving yourself? Maybe if I wasn’t at the point where I could make a living out of it now I would probably give it up because I would be too exhausted trying to prove myself.
There can come a point where it is too much about yourself and your ego…
Yea and I had to think of myself, and still do think about myself too much but it’s not healthy to think about yourself in that way. Maybe you might fail – I don’t know if there is such thing as failing – but you put the effort into it, learned, met people, experienced real failure and that just makes you a stronger person that you can take into anything else, a whole range of jobs that are more conducive to things more outside of you. Like teaching or working in the environment, working with mentally ill people. There is shit that can feed you just as much.
Yea I don’t believe you can ever be a failure…
Yea, you fucking did it but the stars weren’t aligned for that being your path at that moment. Or you can still try to do it if that fulfils you, but I think you arrive at a certain point where you feel you have given enough, I still want to give more, it’s not pure altruism but there is an element of you not seeing yourself as the centre of the universe, which is a whole paradigm shift in your development as a human being. Because you do think you’re the centre and there’s a certain point when you realise, oh shit I’m actually not the centre.
What are you plans for 2012?
Just gigs and travelling, going to Australia again, building a new show. Just trying to find out if the more I play the more I can live. Experimenting with play, as opposed to always doubting myself or trying to prove I just want to relax and play.
It must be great to have the opportunity to travel for your own experiences with new audiences, performing in front of different people…
Yea, take it to Zagreb and go bring some stupidity to Croatia, share it with those guys. Spread the doctrine, the disease, whatever you want to call it, the medicine. So people take the world and life less seriously, to be able to spread that is a really cool thing. I don’t feel like such a missionary but it’s a cool little mission to have if I had to have one. Let’s just be idiots and have fun a little more, not taking shit so seriously. Give that to the fucking Croatians, and also get inspired by other cultures along the way which will inform my work more as well. I want to work with other people also, I’ve got a kids show which I’m doing on November 5 at the Hackney Childrens Theatre.
That’s surely another challenge, putting yourself in front of an audience of children?
Yea, it’s really fun; it’s a big challenge but its pure play and innocence. There’s no proof, you don’t have to prove anything to kids. It’s just pure joy that you are giving, and to bring that to the adult show is also nice. You’re just trying to create joy in them, not trying to impress them with who you are and what you do.
But you have to do that in an adult show, to get them on side, and then once they are then you can play. But with kids you don’t have to get them on side, you just have to create an authoritative air about you so they behave themselves. But there’s no agenda or ulterior motive to get them to like you. This is what you want to do with the adults because they are a lot like the children, but they just have a lot more barriers to cross. Kids are just full of wonder; questioning of what it is opposed to the adults thinking – what you are going to give me, what will I get from this? It’s actually a very egotistically approach from the audiences point of view which creates the same approach from the performer, it’s like two egos fighting each other.
Whereas with the kids, they aren’t concerned about themselves and whether they are going to be entertained, they want to try and understand what is going on, they aren’t thinking about whether or not their enjoying themselves. I mean if their bored then they are simply bored, they’re not judgemental about it. They’re not going to be like, this is bullshit I can’t believe my parents brought me here, they won’t judge you, they will just say it as it is. So you’re not trying to get approval, you’re just trying to get them entertained so they’re not bored and that’s fucking awesome. And that is ultimately what you are doing with the adults, you just have to break through those boundaries, it’s a battle that you have got to fight with the adults but with the kids it’s not. With them you’re trying to get their attention, but with adults you’re trying to get their egos to go away so that they see it for what it is and loosen up a bit.
With the rich history of 80s experimental comedy behind them, the PTOO team aims to generate a real sense of congeniality and affection for the art of comedy and variety, whilst creating a nurturing environment for both artist and audience. To book your ticket in advance click here.