Brass Eye writer Bussman takes one-woman show to Edinburgh

Published Tuesday 27 June 2006 at 16:30 by Alistair Smith

Full coverage of the Edinburgh Festivals

South Park, Brass Eye and Fast Show writer Jane Bussman is to unite with Smack the Pony star Sally Phillips for this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Bussman’s Holiday, a one-woman show written and performed by Bussman will be directed by Phillips and will play at the Assembly at St George’s West during August.

The show tells the story of the comedy writer’s travels in war-torn Africa in search of John Prendergast - special advisor to Bill Clinton - in an attempt to secure an interview. Produced by Richard Jordan, it comes to Edinburgh from a sell-out season in Los Angeles.

Jordan said: “I’ve been doing the show in Los Angeles and New York and it’s gone really well, but Edinburgh is the ultimate audience for comedy. In LA, the movie people hadn’t seen someone do Brass Eye type jokes about sacred cows and I could hear people in the audience gasping ‘Oh Jesus!’, and I’d think blimey, that’s me kicked out of Meryl Streep’s Christmas party.

“New Yorkers seem to be sicker, the more offensive the jokes, the more I’d hear dirty laughs in the back rows. In Edinburgh, I know I’m going to get an extremely intelligent audience that has just spent a day being harassed by Bolivian prostitute dance troupes so I’m just planning to give them 55 minutes of extremely guilty pleasure, as they say in America.”