During the epidemic, a lot of new comedians garnered sizable TikTok followings. Now, some people are attempting to use live performances at the Edinburgh Fringe to turn viral celebrities into on-stage success.
Due to its open sharing platform for quick, humorous films, TikTok has become a significant influence in comedy. The business is hosting a virtual stage this year and supporting Edinburgh's yearly comedy festival.
Even if stand-up comedy won't likely be replaced by social media, it has made it possible for a new generation of aspiring comedians to break through the barriers of the industry.
Can the internet sensations compete with live audiences, though? Four of the top TikTok comedians who are appearing in Edinburgh this month discuss how they became viral sensations, how they transitioned to the stage, and if the two can coexist.
"I have what would have taken me ten years,"
In the past (i.e., a few years ago), a comic attending Edinburgh would expect to be seen by a manager or TV producer who may one day assist them in gaining a large audience worldwide. Performers like Christian Brighty can do it themselves in a few months in the TikTok era.
Brighty, a 28-year-old Cambridge shire resident, declares: "I'm going to tour America next year, which is an outrageous, insane concept." "I'm an alternative comic who, in 2019, was performing in dark bar cellars, which is where I believe Covid started. And I have enough people now to travel to America with my act. That is crazy."
Given that the US accounts for just under half of his 430,000 TikTok followers, it's not hard to think that his raucous and witty parodies of lusty historical plays would be popular in the post-Bridgerton age. While on furlough during lockdown, he joined the site and posted a video every day for a month.
It provided a secure environment where he could express his creativity, try new things, and fail. "Posting a subpar video has no consequences because no one will watch it. An excellent one, though, may be seen by millions of people. During that period, I learned a lot."
Watching Poldark with his girlfriend's family served as the inspiration for his first video to surpass the million views barrier. He has since established a cast of predictable, ridiculous characters, including a romantic poet, a highwayman with a hobby horse, and a recurrent joke about the appeal of the stereotypically distant hero.
He claims that by forcing himself to create more TikToks, he improved the quality of his joke writing. And without a doubt, it has improved my live performances.
His play Playboy, which he co-wrote with Amy Greaves, is set in Edinburgh and centers on another alter-ego, Lord Christian Brighty, who is a mix between Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and Lord Flashheart from Blackadder.
"You cannot simply perform what you do on TikTok in front of a live audience. It won't function, "He claims.
"They need distinct sensitivities, therefore I refer to them as siblings. There are parts of the [live] show that would go much more slowly on TikTok because the joke must be delivered promptly, it must have a powerful visual, and it must be the headline. On stage, though, you really can't do that."
He claims that the theatrical performance is "the most true version of me" and is more developed. An humorous 10-second video doesn't usually transfer to a pleasant hour at the theatre, but in this case it certainly did, according to The Telegraph, which complimented it.
The pressure has increased as a result of TikTok.
Abi Clarke spent a year performing low-key events on the circuit before to the epidemic, making her "quite new" to stand-up. She emerged with tens of thousands of internet followers when the lockdowns were lifted. She now has 360,000 Instagram followers and 840,000 TikTok followers.
Before, she recalls, "I could remain unknown, and if a gig didn't go well, I'd just vanish and think, no one's going to remember anyhow." "In contrast, there is more pressure now. People in the audience frequently recognize you or have come to see you particularly."
Even some have appeared sporting her merchandise. On stage, though, Clarke continues to move slowly.
She won't be performing the typical solo hour-long act in Edinburgh; instead, she will be one of four fresh comics appearing at the coveted Comedy Reserve night at the Pleasance theatre. She states, "I'm still in training."
"Many people mistakenly believe that you are the same as the comedians they watch on television if they see someone with a big social media following. Well, you're a well-known comic, they say. But none of the comedians you watch on television hasn't been performing for at least six years. And I've been going since 2019, other from a two-year period when I wasn't playing live."
If Cats Were Human and If Dogs Were Human, as well as a comedy about the workplace snobs Jill and Tracey and life at Asos HQ, helped her find success online. They differ significantly from her stand-up act due to its fast editing, numerous characters, and minute-long maximum running times.
"To be honest, they don't actually flow into one another that much. Only twice, I'd think, have I written both a sketch and [live] material about the same topic."
She claims that her live routine is "a lot ruder." "You may be a little naughtier on stage, but I think things might be misinterpreted online or people who don't understand English may not comprehend your humor. So, in my opinion, you must be extremely virtuous online. You must be your upbeat self.
But on stage, I get to display everything of myself, which is incredibly enjoyable since you strive to win over the audience at first before seeing how far you can go without doing so.
I'm going to end my TikTok persona.
Irish comedian Lee Brophy gained over 700,000 followers on TikTok when he began uploading parodies as a lip-syncing, LGBT-accepting Catholic priest who "puts the bi in Bible." His responses ranged from death threats to pleas for assistance from homosexual teenagers in conservative religious homes.
False Prophet, Brophy's Edinburgh stand-up performance, explores the paradoxical effects of becoming renowned as the TikTok priest; at the festival's conclusion, the character will essentially be killed off.
Before the outbreak, Brophy, who also performed stand-up comedy, said, "It's been a bizarre trip. "None of this was planned for me. I was only posting ridiculous jokes online in an effort to elicit some comment from viewers. I also received a lot of feedback from others.
At the outset of lockdown, Brophy developed a TV pilot that featured his liberal, jovial priest. By uploading video on TikTok, the comedian made the decision to test the script.
He continues, "The priest was a pretty small figure to begin with. "I then posted him online, and others seemed to be interested in his progressive viewpoint, so I knew there was a market for it.
"I decided to simply do that. It became into a routine where I would get out of bed every morning, put on what I considered to be a costume, and sit in front of my phone around nine o'clock lip-syncing to Taylor Swift."
"There are many who fervently believe I am a priest. Then there are some who abhor it completely and say things like, "You are leading people to hell.""
He claims that his current objective is to "[demonstrate] I am not that person, allow myself the freedom to be a performer again, and to be acknowledged as a performer, comic, and artist" rather than "to [necessarily] erase that portion because] I'm glad for all the positives that have come out of it."
It was "so evident that this is merely the stepping stone for something so much better," Edinburgh Guide said in a five-star rating.
So, following his run in Edinburgh, he will upload a video firing Father Lee. He explains, "I've been going along with this because I find it hilarious, but now I kind of want my life back."
"Someone travelled to Edinburgh from Illinois to visit us."
Chloe and Tabby Tingey, sisters, had given up on their dreams of being entertainers prior to the epidemic. Chloe was employed in digital marketing and received her education at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Tabby had retrained to become a yoga instructor after attending the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The yoga studio never opened, Covid happened, and the couple moved in together. Strangely, they dabbled in TikTok with weightlifting challenges. They then made the decision to upload a funny song about relationships after recently been dumped by each other.
Because no one was still following us at that moment, Tabby, 28, explains, "We assumed nobody would notice it." Tens of thousands did realize they were mistaken.
Chloe, 30, goes on to say: "We reasoned that because we were experiencing our highest number of views ever, we should probably just ride the wave. But it came as a great surprise and shock."
Their sophisticated movies quickly received millions of views. The fact that we are musical comedians still astounds us every day when we wake up, Chloe continues. This is a huge surprise.
Along with mocking dating and males, they also produce very well-liked spoofs of a party-loving Boris Johnson. They currently have 400,000 followers and frequently change the lyrics of popular songs.
Their live performance, Bittersweet, however, is entirely composed of their own candid and humorous lyrics that mostly criticize manipulative, insufficient, and enraged males — or, as one song puts it, "every second-rate Romeo we've ever known."
There are a few songs that have been heard both online and live, but generally there isn't much crossover. Writing an hour-long stage play, according to Tabby, was "quite different from having these isolated tiny ideas."
For the live event, Chloe adds, "We really had to think about the arc of it and how it all works together since it's just little chunks on TikTok."
According to Tabby, it is "impossible to measure" how many attendees in Edinburgh are there as a result of TikTok.
Her sister continues: "Someone who is a fan of ours on TikTok came to our concert all the way from Illinois to see us. We are quite grateful as a result of that."
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