Mischief Makers Episode 5: Harry Kershaw
[Upbeat music plays]
Host: Welcome to Mischief Makers, your one stop shop for all things Mischief. Join your host Dave Hearn, as he finds out what makes Mischief... well, Mischief!Charlie Russell: Hello and welcome to Mischief Makers. I am Charlie Russell, and with me I have the utterly glorious Harry Kershaw, hello Hazzah!Harry Kershaw: Hello.CR: How are you?HK: I'm very good. I'm currently lying on my bed.CR: My goodness.HK: Unnecessary information but it is true.[CR and HK laughs]CR: Well, I am sitting on my bed, if that helps.HK: Okay, I'm going try sitting, I think that might be better. Good.[CR laughs]CR: So this programme is designed to help Mischief fans get to know us a little bit more.
And we're gonna start with the Getting to Know You section. But Dave, as he's mentioned earlier, is not so technically minded and doesn't have any jingles. So I was hoping you could provide a jingle for us, a getting to know you type jingle.HK: Excellent. What now?CR: Are you ready? Yeah, go for it.HK: [singing] Getting to know me. Getting to know me.[CR laughs]CR: That was so sitar-go.[CR and HK laughs]HK: It makes it memorable if it's just, you know, simple.CR: That's very true. Very true.HK: Kept that simple.CR: Harry Kershaw by-line, keep it simple.HK: Yeah, yeah.CR: So the first thing I want to ask you about is, and you're probably sick of talking about it, but I don't think lots of people know this about you, that you have no peripheral vision. Is that right?HK: Well nearly. I've got sort of 12% peripheral vision, which means that I can't really... if I'm not looking at something, then I can't see it. And that sounds kind of well, I think probably in order to get an idea of what it's like, if you take both your hands and put them as close to your eyes as you can, and imagine that you can probably see your hands. But I can't see my hands and I can't see anything. So what I can see is essentially tunnel vision, which means that I can't dance...I can't really see people out of the corner of my eye, that's essentially what that means.CR: Did you say that you also can't dance?HK: Well, I can. Well, not well. I think there are many other reasons for that.CR: I was going to say. I've seen you and you can dance.HK: It's very enthusiastic, it's not technically very good.CR :I disagree.* [HK laughs]*CR: Strongly. It's proved quite interesting when we do Mischief Movie Night, hasn't it?
That issue, not the dancing, the lack of peripheral vision, because of course, you can't necessarily see us if we're improvising and we do something behind you.HK: No.CR: Or at least to the side of you, you don't see it, do you?HK: To me, that's some sort of magic trick, the idea that you can. I don't really understand what peripheral vision is because I don't really have it. So being able to see what's explained to me is, as you can see it, but you can't really see it, and I find that baffling.
So yeah, I mean, what is weird is during a scene, someone might be doing something very important and it's incredibly obvious to everyone else and I can't see it at all. So, yeah, it's you know, I'm seeing it as an opportunity to...CR: Provide comedy, and it does. It really does.HK: Yeah, yeah yeah.CR: I suppose putting it like that, it is quite baffling. Doesn't really make any sense to me.HK: But then Henry Shields can't really hear brilliantly. I remember we did a scene where my character had no peripheral vision and he had no hearing in one of his ears, and that was actually just a true thing that happened, and then we started insulting each other based on those shortcomings. So that was wonderful for me and probably baffling for the audience.CR: I remember it actually, and it was a really strange moment for everyone else on stage going, is this joking?[HK laughs]CR: Is this real? And we were laughing way more than the audience.HK: Yeah, yeah. Rule number one, don't have a load more fun than the audience. We ignored that rule.[CR laughs]CR: All right. So another question I have for you, is it correct that you can ride a horse? And are you any good at it?HK: Yeah, I think this is a big giveaway for all the people that didn't think I was really posh based on my accent. I think it really gives away the fact that I am.[CR laughs]HK: Yeah. I can read... I can read? I can walk... I can ride a horse. I can read to a horse as well, but I can ride a horse and I went to pony club when I was younger, that's how cool I am. And pony club is basically when you ride around on a horse for a couple of weeks, and then you end with the competition where you realise you're not actually very good at riding a horse. Although I didn't make it the last time I went to pony club, I didn't make it to the competition day because I fell off the horse and had to go away in an air ambulance. So how good or bad I am at horse riding I think is up for debate, but I've done it a lot.CR: Oh, Hazza, you poor thing.HK: Thank you.[CR laughs]CR: Also, you've actually worked a lot as an actor outside of Mischief, and often we actually can't pin you down to get you in a show. Could you tell us what your favourite show has been to do that is not a Mischief show?HK: I was watching the recording of One Man, Two Governors that they put out the other day, and I was not in that version, I was in a slightly later version, but it was in the Haymarket in the West End. I played the actor Alan Dangle, who was not a very good actor, who took himself incredibly seriously, so they cast me in it and I had a lovely time doing that. I can remember, one of my favourite things was the beginning of the second half, there's a band onstage and you come on as Alan Dangle, the actor, you come on stage and you hopefully get a round of applause because of something you've done earlier, and I remember feeling like a complete rock star doing that, that was great.
More recently, I was in This House, which was a play about 1960s and 1970s politics, which is a play written by James Graham, and that was on tour, and that was great as well I had such a nice time doing that. Essentially, I essentially realised that I play very loud, very intense characters quite often.[CR laughs]CR: You've just realised?HK: Yeah. I mean, I think the reason for that is probably the peripheral vision thing. If I'm looking at something, then I'm really looking at it, which gives me an unnecessarily intense quality I think.[CR and HK laughs]CR: I wouldn't say it's unnecessary.HK: It's specific, though, isn't it? I mean, yeah. I also played lot of, for a long time I played men that women don't want to go out with. I was in a TV show called Cuckoo where that was the case. I was also in something called Switch, and the disappointing thing about that...that was about teenage witches, and I was playing the man that women didn't want to go out with, and the really sad thing about that was in the script, I remember the words she looks across at Geoffrey, I was Geoffrey, and Geoffrey is worse than she could possibly have ever imagined. And I sort of imagined that they'd give me glasses, and I don't know, put like fake warts on my face or something, but actually, what they did was they did my hair the way I normally do it and then they put on a hoodie that I thought was quite cool, and they said I was ready to go.[CR and HK laughs]HK: I found that, I found that if I'm being honest with you Charlie, I found that moment disappointing.CR: Awh! Yeah, I can imagine. Well, you are brilliant and I saw all of those shows that you mentioned and you are excellent in all of them and what a great actor you are.HK: You're too kind.CR: And having worked outside of Mischief, have you learned anything from other actors?
You know, a really great tip or something you really should do in rehearsal. And conversely, have you also seen things that are maybe the worst thing you can ever do in a rehearsal?HK: Yeah. I'll take the negative first so that we can end with the positive because that's always nicer isn't it. I think the most annoying thing I've seen is, someone turn up late to rehearsals on a regular basis and then blame everyone. Then they turned up late for rehearsal all the time, and then they'd go for naps during rehearsal, which I found...a word I've used a lot already, baffling. And they turned up, I think they turned up a few hours late and then they stopped the rehearsal, they turned up and they said it's Poet's Day today, piss off early, tomorrow's Saturday. And I thought, you're a couple of hours late, it's probably not the time to make jokes about leaving early. I think the main thing is just if you're in a rehearsal room and you're giving the impression that you don't want to be in a rehearsal room, then people won't want to have you in a rehearsal room.CR: I mean, that is baffling, isn't it, because as actors, we're all desperate to get work or spend most of the time unemployed.HK: Yeah.CR: So, when you finally get a job not to want to be there, just don't be an actor then, do something else.HK: The other thing I find annoying, and I think probably actually at some point we've all been guilty of it, is you wait a long time for a job and hopefully it's a really nice dream job, maybe it's a theatre job, and then you get your schedule through for the first week, and the first days are normally ten o'clock and then maybe the second day is sort of 11:30. And I've been out for drinks with people when they've just celebrated getting the job and how happy they are to be going in at 11:30 for the second day. I always find baffling because you've spent so long trying to get the job and now you're happy that you're not in for an hour and a half, I find that very confusing. But on the other side, I'd say the most positive thing that I've learnt is, that the only thing that you can really control is how much effort you put into the work that you do. And I totally understand people who think, oh, I don't want to do too much work before turning up for the first day of rehearsal, but I'm not like that, I need to do as much work as I as I possibly can do. It's the same for auditions I think, the only thing you can control is how much effort you put in, and I think that the best people I've worked with are the people who care the most and who put in that extra work in order to give the impression that they know what they're doing. Because I think we always start with the assumption or the reality that it's not going to be very good the first time you go through something. I think that's fine, but however, if you can put in effort so that the timescale between it being terrible and the timescale and the difference between it being quite good aren't as long as they could be, because quite often the reason why things aren't as good as they could be is because people don't know their lines or they haven't really thought about things. If you really think about something and you really prepare as well as you can, then yeah, then I don't think you have anything to worry about.CR: Yeah, because it'll always be rubbish the first time you do it. But you're right, you probably reduce the amount of time it takes for it to get good.HK: Yeah. I mean obviously in comedy...I remember I was in a rehearsal for a comedy show and they had this rule which was, that you weren't allowed to laugh in rehearsals.
And at the time I thought, that's totally insane, why would you do that? And I kind of understood it because as actors, you're always trying to be supportive and nice, and maybe even if someone doesn't do something hilarious, then your initial instinct is to go sort of like, oh, hahahahahha yes! Brilliant! God, you're good, because we want to make friends, and it might well be brilliant, but it might not be. And there's always a weird thing that happens when you've done a lot of rehearsals of a comedy scene, which is that it's almost certainly much better than it was the first time you did it, but because everyone in the rehearsal room has seen it so many times, it becomes that thing where you're just like actually, I don't think this is funny anymore, and then what you can end up doing is adding loads of unnecessary business on top of it, in order to make it funny again. So actually, that was kind of an interesting thing, they just banned laughter, and then on the first night, it was actually quite good.CR: Maybe we should start doing that. It would be practically impossible.HK: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Mischief is kind of a different thing, especially... I was, before Corona I was doing the rehearsals for Magic Goes Wrong, and that's a really weird thing to rehearse because a lot of it is improvised. It's very strange to rehearse, sort of talking to an audience and interacting with an audience, but you know, there's no sort of suspension of disbelief, you know that you're just talking to the director or someone who's sitting in on rehearsals. And obviously, it doesn't tend to be the same more than once in a row, but it's rehearsing something that's improvised is bizarre, I've got to say. I'll never not find asking someone what their name is and then improvising around that, I will never find rehearsing that not very strange.CR: Good to know! And one more small question, tell us about Covent Garden soup, Harry.HK: Yeah, okay. So, okay, there's background on this. So when I was a child, Covent Garden Soup made a really good soup. It doesn't sound exciting, I understand that, but it was Covent Garden Spinach Soup, and as a child, I loved it. It was my favourite thing to eat and I don't know when, but a few years ago, Covent Garden Soup discontinued spinach soup, and they put in its place a far inferior product that is green but is not the same and is not good in my opinion. So I realised this, and it was around the time that Pret stopped doing their cream of chicken soup, and that's a different story but that was also very sad. So what I did was, I started messaging them on a regular basis, Covent Garden Soup, that they should re-continue this spinach soup, which I thought was a good idea, and what they did was they totally ignored me, which I understand. So then, it sort of started as a joke, like the amount of people that tweet Covent Garden Soup is a surprisingly high number of people. So people would say stuff like, oh, no, just opened my chicken soup from Covent Garden and it had a bone in it, furious. And I'd tweet them back things like, yeah, that sounds awful. You know, what doesn't have any bones in it, Covent Garden Spinach Soup, right Dan? Sometimes people would respond and most the time they wouldn't, but it sort of started as a joke and then I carried on doing that for a long time because I found it quite funny. And then I realised that actually it was something that I thought would be good for humanity and I tried to get some celebrities involved. I tweeted Covent Garden Spinach Soup that if I got 500,000 signatures, would they bring it back? They ignored that. Whenever I'm bored, I now tweet Covent Garden Soup about bringing it back and they haven't responded. I think maybe they responded once, I think they think that I'm clinically insane and that's fine, that's their judgement but it's not true.CR: Yes.HK: And I think they should bring it back. So if they're listening to this, they should definitely, they should consider very strongly bringing it back.CR: What an insight into your mind Haz.[CR and HK laughs]CR: OK, we have to move on from that because that was utterly bizarre.HK: Too long?[CR and HK laughs]CR: Too long, if anything. We've got some questions from the web, I reckon we've got time. Go on. Can you do a jingle about questions from the web?HK: Questions from the Web. dada da!CR: Oh, I like that. I like that a lot! Ok, what is the best thing about being in Mischief?HK: I think the best thing about Mischief is, when I was in drama school and I was going a bit, I was really starting to doubt myself, and things weren't going particularly well.
Every weekend we would go and we would just improvise, and we were essentially just a bunch of losers in a room,
making mistakes, maybe, but just performing and being able to be creative. And I think maybe without that, I think probably I would have had a low point that I didn't have cause I was able to just sort of be creative and and do stuff. I think that quite often people give you reasons why you can't do things and then you end up not doing anything. And with Mischief, there's very little of that, we have this idea and we're going to do it, which I think is awesome.CR: Yeah, I mean, you were a founding member of Mischief and you did go to LAMDA for just one year, is that right? And then you went to RADA.HK: Yes. They wouldn't have me back, but now I'm teaching there at the moment, I'm actually teaching improvisation there at the moment.CR: What, at LAMDA?HK: Yeah, which is great. Well not right now obviously, but previously.CR: Yeah.HK: I think that's brilliant. I love doing that.CR: Yeah, I know what you mean about that's a thing of the weekend, of just being like, right, all week I've been rubbish at everything but this weekend I am just going to go in a room with my bunch of friends, my losers, and we can be rubbish, but it's sort of all right, and we can just express ourselves and kind of be stupid and then laugh at it and then go and get some chips.HK: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. In a drama school they do that thing or they certainly did it to me, where they sort of break you apart and then they reassemble you, and I understand why why people do that, but quite often it can feel quite disheartening. And definitely at some point during training I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of being right or doing the right thing, and I just realised that doesn't really exist, and the assumption that you can do the right thing or the perfect thing actually is sort of the enemy of creativity. So being in a room where that was the case was great.CR: Yeah, what a good sentence.HK: Thank you.CR: You'll be quoted on that, I think. And another question from Twitter. What are you most proud of so far? I mean, that could mean anything I suppose, but potentially in your career?HK: Yeah, I think I'm most proud...That's a really good one. I think I'm probably most proud of, I think of Edinburgh, of doing Edinburgh's because, The Edinburgh Festival doing shows during the Edinburgh Festival, getting up early, doing gigs on a pink bus at nine o'clock in the morning and doing the real hard graft is a lot more difficult than when you're in a West End theatre or if you're on a film set, obviously, depending on the film, depending on on the play. But actually just doing all that extra stuff, where you have to go and flyer and get people to come and see your own work is I think actually much more difficult and actually I'll go further than that. I'd say I am very bad at being an understudy in anything, I don't really have the type of brain that works for it. And I'd say at one point I went on and did a, I was never really meant to go on as this part because I was playing a different part in the show, but I went on having not really rehearsed the part and I didn't die, and that was really positive. I think because I don't have that kind of brain where you can go through something once and know it. And I think being an understudy is something that is massively underappreciated, generally speaking, I think especially in straight theatre. I think people who have that ability to go on and save the day on a regular basis are amazing, I don't think that people get the respect they deserve doing it. I realised that I shouldn't be doing it just because I'm very bad at understudying, I don't have that kind of brain, but I think everyone who does understudy is amazing, especially if you've got loads of parts to to remember. I think going on and not destroying the show is much more impressive than playing a really good part in something that you do night after night.CR: Yeah, that you've got six weeks to rehearse on, I know.HK: Yeah.CR: I'm always impressed by understudies, too. They're amazing.HK: Yeah.CR: So what is your most memorable moment from Mischief Movie Night?HK: Oh! 'm not particularly a singer, but quite a lot of them revolve around songs.
I'd say there's one moment that sticks out because whenever I mention it to anyone in Mischief, no one remembers it at all, and at the moment when I was doing it, I was like, this is amazing. It was something set in a gold mine, and it was a rock song called At The Bottom of the Mine.CR: Oh yeah?HK: I thought that was amazing and I really enjoyed doing it, and very few people can remember it happening at all. Which is kind of interesting, because when you're doing something, I think quite often you assume that the audience think what you think about it, which is true for when you don't think it's good is as well as when you think it's brilliant. So the idea that I thought it was amazing and it wasn't memorable to anyone else, that made me laugh. Then there was another one where we were lovers in a documentary, I think we were Bingo and Stone.CR: Yeah we were!HK: That was really fun.CR: We had a whole song.HK: Yeah.CR: You are not alone when you have Bingo and Stone or something.HK: Yeah. Really did a good job of making that about ourselves, which is great.[HK and CR laugh]HK: Yeah. I think there's one more where we were...it was in Cardiff. I remember this because you guys did a really good song again where you just did loads of harmonies. I was a character who came on, and I was talking to someone who lived above a police station...no, who fancied someone who lived above a police station, and I came on and the only piece of advice I gave regularly was don't get ideas above your station. And I didn't realise...I think I just said that as a piece of advice and I forgot that it was the whole thing was based above a police station. So I think people thought it was a lot cleverer than it was meant to be, but I think that's the only advice I gave throughout the show, and I thought that was really fun.CR: It was. You made me laugh a lot.[CR laughs]CR: Which was your favourite character from Mischief Movie Night?HK: That I did? Or that other people have done?CR: Either!HK: I think the most I've laughed in a Mischief Movie Night was when, Henry Lewis at the end of a show, which I think had baffled the audience, I think it was a matinee in Cambridge or something like that.CR: Oh yeah.HK: There was a big twist that...essentially, the game became that there need to be loads of twists here because there's very little content. So in the end, the game became there need to be loads of twists and people would say, actually, I'm your mother, and then someone else would say, actually, it's the case that I'm your father and I've always been your father. It was just loads of that and it sort of got to a head, and at one point, Henry Lewis shouted, we aren't security guards, we are actually a bag of lemons. And it was really interesting because it wasn't, I wouldn't say it was quality improvisation, but it was just going with the idea, which was obviously insane, and was really great. I think I played at one point I played someone called the Riddler.CR: Oh yes!HK: In a sort of, they had to go across a bridge of some kind and I think there's another song, there's something along the lines of don't ridicule the riddler.CR: Oh!I watched that show, that was so good.HK: I had a lovely time. That was the most fun I've had, and then we had a competition through song, it was great. I had a lovely time.CR: It was very good. I also remember really back in the day that romcom we did in Edinburgh, Gordon's brown trousers.HK: Yeah.CR: And I believe you were Gordon.HK: Yes I was. I think that was mentioned because I used to go around Edinburgh in brown corduroy trousers which I've now realised weren't as cool as I thought they were.* [CR laughs]*HK: But yeah, I remember that. That was a real thing about just saying yeah, it was the first time that I've just really gone with saying yes to something that I didn't really understand at all. So Dave, I remember Dave Hearn came on during that show and he went, you've got to tell her, and I said that I love her? And then he went, Yes, you've got to tell her that you love her. And that was essentially the entire plot of the show, and all it came from was just saying yes rather than saying no.CR: Rather than going, what?!HK: Yes. What? Explain!CR: Although a bit of a naughty move from Dave.HK: Yes. True.CR: He just dropped you in it, but yeah very good work from the two of you, you trust each other very much. Well, that was fascinating, and we can move on now to the quickfire questions. So can you also give me a three second jingle for the quick fire section?HK: Quick fire section! Dadada da!CR: [laughs] Dada da! Brilliant. Actually, I just realised there was another question that could have gone into the first one because it is from the web, but it also can be a quickfire question. So are you ready?HK: Yes.CR: Would you rather sweat mayonnaise or have screaming nipples that interrupt your conversation?HK: I'd rather have screaming nipples.CR: I would allow an explanation.HK: You can't...just the idea of sour mayonnaise. Sweat smells bad enough, the screaming nipples could be fun versus the sweating. mayonnaise couldn't be fun. Also, it's like a party trick, look at my screaming nipples, no one wants the party trick of look at my rancid sour mayonnaise sweat.CR: Yeah, because no one's going to use that mayonnaise as mayonnaise are they? It's not like at a barbecue that you're like, oh, anyone need any mayo? I've already got some.HK: Exactly. I don't want your horrid sweated mayonnaise, whereas I can imagine someone going on the Ellen Show and just being like, look, I've got screaming nipples.CR: That's very true. OK. Next question, what is your favourite colour.HK: Blue.CR: What is your spirit animal?HK: FoxCR: Fox! Who is the bossiest member of Mischief?HK: Oh, God, no one. No one is bad. No. Nancy?CR: Fair, fair. Who is the most likely to corpse on stage?HK: I think it's me.CR: Oh! I thought you were gonna say me!HK: I think maybe it's both of us but I didn't want to offend you. So I say both of us maybe.CR: Particularly as a pair as well.HK: Yeah. Exactly.[HK and CR laugh]CR: We're dreadful aren't we! Okay. Is a Jaffa cake a cake or a biscuit?HK: It's a biscuit.CR: What id your favourite film?HK: Oh, Shine.CR: Shine?HK. Yeah.CR: What's that?HK: It's about a really brilliant concert pianist, and it's amazing. It's about a concert pianist who, who maybe works...I don't want to explain it too much, but I think it's the best film ever written, it's so good.CR: Wow.HK: And basically, he ends up not seeming like he's a concert pianist. Oh. I'm not going to explain it too much, just watch it, it's so good.CR: Brilliant. Okay. And how far is too far?HK: Eleven kilometres.CR: Nice. Who is your comedy hero?HK: I've got to say Jonathan Burke/ Jonathan Sayer for this. I've not listened to his one, but I'm sure he didn't say that for me, but I've got to say it cause we used to go, before we went on stage, we used to both say to each other, you're my comedy hero. So I've got to say that.CR: Awh!HK: He'll probably say Chaplin orCR: Buster KeatonHK: Buster Keaton....Buster Keaton's amazing, he'll probably say that. But really, if he was being honest, he would say me.CR: Oh, that's so sweet. Well, he should say you anyway.HK: I don't think he did.[CR laugh]CR: I want to ask you something as well. If you weren't an actor and you weren't in this the side of the creative industry what might you do instead?HK: I was looking back at the diary, because we've all got some time on our hands, I was looking back at a diary and I realised that I wanted to be a cocktail critic or a hotel critic or a swimming pool critic. Just anywhere where I got to go to a nice place for free and then write about it.CR: [laughs] That is a great aspiration, isn't it?HK: Yeah, much better.[short gap in audio]HK: Oh, think I've lost you.CR: No. I was just going to say, I think you'd be a great cocktail critic actually.HK: I make too many cocktails, so now I feel I can criticize them.CR: What's your favourite?HK: I like an old fashioned because it's really easy, or an espresso martini because you get to shake it in a shaker, which is always fun.CR: Do they not keep you up at night?HK: If you have many, then, yes, but if you just have one, then you're basically having a shot of espresso, then you're fine. This is giving away that I'm posh again, isn't it?CH: Yeah.HK: The well kept secret.CH: It's very well kept. Your casting is definitely normally very different from this. I don't think you're ever played a posh man in your life.HK: Loud posh man normally.[CR laughs]CR: Amazing. Harry, this has been so lovely, thank you so much. We've heard your recommendation for film, do you have any TV recommendations for people?HK: Well, Tiger King obviously, but let me think of something more interesting than that. Oh, oh, oh, okay, for a different reason, there's something called Manifest, which is the best concept for a TV show that someone has come up, it's such a good concept, and the delivery just doesn't quite deliver on the brilliant, brilliant idea, but it is no less good because of it. It's sort of marvelous in a sort of I can see what they're trying to do here way, so if you enjoy deconstructing what you watch in a very unhelpful way, that's the show for you.CR: Gosh, I'm sure that speaks to a lot of people.[HK and CR laugh]CR: That's incredible. Well, thank you so much, and if you could just give us a little closing jingle to the interview with Harry, that'll be great.HK: [singing] The interview is over. Dada da!CR: Dada da![CR laughs]CR: Thank you so much, thanks, everyone, for listening, I am Charlie Russell, I've been talking to Harry Kershaw, do keep an eye out for our next episode. If you want to, you can follow Mischief and get all the latest info and news on Twitter. The handle is @Mischief Comedy. Thank you so much and keep making mischief.