Catch comedy duo Trodd en Bratt in previews

Comedy — 04 July 2012

In 2007 Lucy Trodd and Ruth Bratt met on the improvised comedy circuit. While enjoying solo success on the stand-up circuit, they got more of a buzz from collaboration, becoming comedy duo Trodd en Bratt

They are off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August so catch them in London polishing their set at the London preview shows.

“It’s really important to get the show in as finished and polished a form as you can before Edinburgh,” says 33 year-old Trodd. “There are so many shows in Edinburgh – thousands of them – and you need to be ready from the very first day of the festival – to have reviewers and the audience in, who will say nice things and encourage more people. So the previews mean you can find out what works, what doesn’t work, what might work. Audiences get to see a show as it’s emerging.”

Trodd’s partner Bratt, 36, agrees. “Audiences like to say they were there when it was ‘almost good’ and some people like the science behind it. They also can get to a preview on a Travelcard. Cheap is good too – I worry about how expensive Edinburgh is becoming. This is why we are supporting The Laughing Horse Free Festival.”

The pair have won plaudits for their whimsy and are excited about what comes next: working on projects with Hardeep Singh Kohli and Ricky Gervais. What can London audiences expect at the Hen & Chicken and the Canal Cafe though? “Lots of chaos, with not quite enough structure, so that when we get to Edinburgh we’ll have lots of chaos in just enough structure,” says Trodd. “We’re trying to get our script finalised (as far as you can with two improvisers) for our techies. But it’s really hard, because we find it difficult to do the same thing twice,” she adds, pleadingly.