Robert Rhys Bond sits in Cafe 81 and within minutes of meeting him, it is impossible not to feel charmed or finding yourself laughing with great enthusiasm at what he is telling you, about his own life or The Legion of Doom. We are meeting up ahead of the comedy sketch show at Cafe 81 two night’s performance in August.
The Legion of Doom have been going for about three or so years. Robert and Lee met at John Moore’s University where they did drama together and Lee agreed to play an elf in a show Robert was directing, “It was the best portrayal of an elf by a six foot Lancastrian on the British stage”, says Robert, “we have been friends ever since!”
The show, titled Sketchpocolypse, is on at Cafe 81 on the 2nd and 8th August and as Robert goes onto explain, it is a different type of comedy in which the public of Liverpool will see.
Comedy is a very subjective thing, what makes yours different or stand out?
Robert: “First of all, it’s sketch which is quite rare, particularly in Liverpool. Secondly, because we both come from a drama and acting background, very theatrical and thirdly because we spend so much time writing new material – 40 minutes of new material every month for the comedy nights, it’s a lot and it’s been really tough doing the comedy nights and the Edinburgh shows as well, so that has been a bit of a struggle. However, on the other hand, since we’ve been doing that six or seven months, the material has improved massively because we’re doing more of it. We put a great deal of work into it, we write and re-write loads and also ourselves as we’re quite unique as we have a very individual sense of humour. We went to Edinburgh last time and they hated us but then we several people’s little gem of the Edinburgh Fringe. There was only the two of us up there promoting it so there was only so much postering and handing out fliers that we could do and we worked ourselves into the ground Lee and I trying to make it work up in Edinburgh. The famous gig that we did for two people, it was just brilliant, it was one of my favourite gigs, I enjoyed it and that’s not doing Edinburgh down at all, it was great!”
Do you find that the crowds are different, say between the Edinburgh and Liverpool audiences?
Robert: “Yes, the Edinburgh crowds come in expecting something with a degree of expectation, I think they put a lot of stock in how you present yourself and things like that which has not been a strong point, we went up with better props, better costumes, we were more organised particularly this year. The material is better and the show’s going to be presented better as well. With a Liverpool crowd as well, there’s a lot of different crowds here, the crowd at the comedy nights at Mello Mello, which is our gig that we do each month, is quite a tough crowd, they aren’t nasty but if you’re not funny, they won’t laugh, that is the worst thing obviously that could happen to you at a comedy night, you don’t’ get a hen party glassing you or something like that because you’re not funny, we have to go on in front of that crowd every month so we have to be good.”
What do you find then is a good joke, what’s your style of performance?
Robert: “We try and be brave and creative as possible, people sometimes come up to us and say it should be a laugh a minute but some will say it was brilliant, they’d not seen anything like it. There’s a sketch that we do about two babies in a womb rowing, we’ve done it several times and another in a similar vein is about two Mancunian goldfish arguing in their bowl about what they can see. All comedy is essentially about two people bickering at one stage or another.”
Was comedy always important to you?
Robert: “Yes, for me and my brother, I should say this though there are three of us – there’s me, Lee and my brother Oliver, we weren’t raised on comedy but it was important in our house, we would sit down and watch Red Dwarf or Bottom or even Rab C. Nesbitt and Russ Abbott. That was the sort of thing we sat down to as a family, me and my brother always mucked around, we share the same sense of humour but Oliver’s is a bit darker, Lee’s got as darker sense of humour as him too but between the three of us, when we work things out, things seem to work, if I write something by myself, it won’t be that good but when we write as a ‘three’ that’s when it becomes really good.”
That’s more of an American way of writing isn’t it – being all around the table?
Robert: “What we generally do is that we’re probably closer to that method. We’ve been going a few years and over the past couple of years Lee and I wrote together as Oliver went off to university so he wasn’t around much especially in his third year. So when Oliver came into do this show, he’s the full back in rugby, he’s the guy who comes in and finishes the move off, puts the cherry on the cake, so what will happen a lot is that as me and Lee live this side of the water and we see much more of each other, we’ll come up with the bare bones of it and then we’ll refine it together. Oliver and I have written a lot together, there’s a sketch where you’ll see about Hitler and his cronies playing Ring Of Fire – in a bunker under Berlin. That idea started here, waiting for a gig next door, rather than rehearsing the gig we had, we wrote that sketch and said we’ve written this instead!”
The performance that you’re going to be doing in a couple of weeks’ time is going to be done in a back room apparently, will change the dynamic of it?
Robert: “As we’ve done the Edinburgh Nights here before, we’ve had a lot of joy at this venue, it’s hot and sweaty the crowd here is very open, very forgiving as they are not necessarily a comedy crowd they’re there to see all different types of performances. We come to Embryo to feel good, we go to Mello Mello – it’s like the gym, we go there to be punished, unless you make them laugh. Unless we are good in Edinburgh, they won’t laugh.
We just went to Brighton with the show that we’re taking to Edinburgh, we played the Brighton Fringe and we were massively heartened as it went really well, as people don’t know us and they’re a southern audience and I might not be the most Scouse person in the world as I’m from The Wirral, I wouldn’t it’s say grungy, I wouldn’t say that there’s an urban feel but Lee and I remember playing on our Sega Megadrives in the 90’s and playing footie round the back, it’s quite playful the relationship between us. Initially, a lot of the people who liked us were just silly boys, because we are silly boys but my wife is interested in comedy, we have lots of female friends who are a good influence on our stuff, we used to be quite cruel like Family Guy but cruel doesn’t really work on stage so we’ve gone much sillier, the sort of ridiculous ideas like we’ll get dressed up as knights and play Game of Thrones – which is musical chairs to the Game of Thrones’ music, so a lot of stuff is just weird.
Not being mean is quite important as well, mean is cheap and we’re not too bad, there’s some swearing in there but not too much and we’re unless you count one section, there’s less than ten swear words in it. This is how we sort of work now, everything is very much comedy arguments. We do have them about whether it’s better to call him a t*** or something else, what works better for the rhythm of it? Someone will also say, I don’t like swearing there but when I went to write for some other people, I did a feature film and there was loads of swearing in there. There were raisins and cake along with all the f-offs as well, I said can we use the words better or vary the words being used but they said the f-word is a great word so I said o.k. then.”
I wish you all the best of luck for Edinburgh and I hope it goes well for you.
Robert: “We’re all confident, we hope something comes from the show, we’ll put on a good show”
For more information regarding The Legion Of Doom go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/Legion-of-Doom-Comedy. Tickets for the show are priced at £5.
Ian D. Hall