Q&A: Interview with Brendon Lemon

Detroit-born, New York-based stand-up comedian, writer, and improviser Brendon Lemon returns to Edinburgh with not one but two shows: An American Comedy Show That Quite Possibly Might Be Funny To The British and ADHD: A Crowdwork Comedy Show

Hello Brendon and welcome back to the Fringe!

You’ve played the Fringe previously – what lures you back to Edinburgh?

Truly, I have to get out of the United States. Have you seen the news? We’re a dumpster fire over here! I feel like I’m the last sane yank in existence. Quite frankly, I’m in Edinburgh, in front of the greatest comedy audience from all over the world to BEG for your help. Your king came over recently and reminded us what some dignity looked like… so you know it’s bad.

I believe that your first Fringe show was in 2017 – Prophet of Doom. The world has changed a lot since then – including a global pandemic. How has your comedy changed since then?

This is a great question. Prophet of Doom was based on the prediction I made in my first comedy special Unbookable, back in 2016, just before Trump got elected. I somehow foresaw that he would win, and felt totally impotent to do anything to stop it (and that’s the ONLY way I was impotent! Doesn’t matter what you’ve heard!). Since then I’ve traveled doing standup all over europe, and most importantly, attended clown school, working with Ed Malone in New York as well as at Ecole Philippe Gaulier. It’s changed the way I think about comedy; I used to think my job was to lead the audience, and it was from ego… now, I have no problem being the joke.

Even though you were born in Detroit, there’s a family connection to Scotland and England on your mother’s side? Did ‘British humour’ have an influence on your comedy?

You bet British Humour™️had an influence on my comedy; I grew up in a house that loved not just watching Monty Python, but listening to Monty Python on old LPs. British humour is more joke-y, more concerned with doing something ridiculous, irreverent, and “sticking” the landing, the wordplay, the love of puns. In many ways I think that my comedy career has just been me trying to think of things to make my Scottish grandmother laugh (which is why neither has worked!).

Titled An American Comedy Show That Quite Possibly Might Be Funny To The British, that implies there’s a distinct difference between American and British audiences. How would you define it?

I remember in 2017 I did a show at the Fringe called “Chicago’s Comedy Showcase.” We had 18 different Chicago comedians across the pond during the month, doing different sets in front of audiences. One night I opened the show and asked the audience who was American, and one whole half of the room applauded and burst into cheers. Then, I asked if anyone in the audience was British, Scottish, or Welsh, and the other half of the room mustered a dull grunt. I could almost remember feeling their eyes roll at me. You see, Americans are just… excited. About… anything. All the time. We’re just, thrilled. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

This might be a cliché but do you have to work harder for the approval of Brit comedy audiences?

Oh, without a doubt. And the hardest audience to win the approval of in Britain is a Glaswegian audience. Once I did Blackfriars in Glasgow (great show, awesome audience, one shit American comedian), and had one of the hardest bombs in the 24 years I’ve been doing standup. It was exhilarating. The next day I came back and did another show and won some laughs. Maybe it’s my upbringing, but it feels like the laughs mean more when you have to earn them (it also explains my attraction to black-cat type women).

You’ve described this show as “this is a show about loving a country that is actively making itself very difficult to be loved”. I think you are right. Not least because of the activities of the current President, the United States isn’t well liked at the moment. Is it challenging to find common humour in a subject that is so polarising?

It’s SO WEIRD in America right now. Every single American has lost contact with family members over the political divide. Honestly, the country has lost its sense of humor (hilarious and ironic, considering so many pro-Trump comedians complained about the lack of humor for so long). Every comedian working the road in the states knows that material about the president that works in cities will not work in the countryside. It’s like there are two countries on top of one another.

Just thinking of court jesters who held truth to power through humour, is that even possible in this day and age because politics feels so dark and devoid of humour?

I think the tragedy isn’t that politics has no humor, because, really, it’s a complete clown circus (no offense to my friends in the red-nose community), the tragedy is that it insists on everyone treating it seriously when it is obviously a farce. I mean, even the characters are comical; Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump, Kash Patel, Kristi Noem, her husband, yikes. If a movie with this rogues gallery of over-the-top idiots came out twenty years ago, Rotten Tomatoes would’ve been full of reviews saying “Unbelievable characters, unrealistic, nobody is this much of a plonker.”