Crybabies answer our questions ahead of Crybabies: The Scaring heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nominees Crybabies bring a fast-paced horror-comedy about fear, faith, ghosts and moving on to the Fringe. Crybabies: The Scaring sees a former priest checks into a remote hotel haunted by a dead guest, he is forced into an increasingly chaotic double act involving demons, serial killers, Shakespearean zombies and a deeply suspicious hotel manager. We chat to Crybabies about chaos, cinema and collaborations.

You've described The Scaring as your slickest show yet. Was there ever a danger that becoming more polished might lose some of the ridiculous chaos audiences know, and love you for?

Don’t you worry. The majority of this show is likely to be Michael running around with no trousers on. You can shine as many fancy lights on that as you want but it will still be a man, now deep into his thirties, increasingly uncomfortable with nudity, being paraded around for public enjoyment. But that being said, we want there to be a few moments where people say, “hang on a minute, that actually looked quite good.”

The Scaring promises Shakespearean zombies, broken-armed serial killers and walking waxworks. When you're creating a world this strange, what is the starting point? And how do you decide which ideas stay and which end up on the cutting room floor?

The beauty of a sketch show, even a narrative one, is you can pretty much justify the inclusion of anything. But we usually start with a cinematic trope - your zombie apocalypses, your mysterious hitchhikers - and see what weird wringer we can wind it through. But because we always want our shows to have a little bit of heart, the stuff that stays is the stuff that contributes to the story in some way. Even if that contribution needs a little reverse engineering to make any sense whatsoever.

This is your first Fringe show with Francesca Moody Productions and director Jon Brittain. What have these collaborations allowed you to do that wasn't possible on your previous shows?

We did a preview of a previous show in a pub in broad daylight so anytime we needed a blackout, we had to ask the audience to shut their eyes. Fingers crossed, we won’t have to do that this year. But crucially it’s freed us up to think a lot more ambitiously. Thanks to Jon and FMP, we’ve been lucky enough to work with lighting designers, projection experts and illusionists, all in the hope of making something that can, at points, be really visually impressive.

Horror often depends on carefully building tension, while sketch comedy thrives on surprise. Did you find those two instincts worked naturally together, or did they occasionally pull in different directions?

We certainly struggled at first. We found ourselves falling into the trap of - here’s a funny bit now here’s a scary bit. It wasn’t until we realised we were pants at actually doing the scary stuff that we made the conscious effort to mash them together. But one thing we noticed from watching stage horror shows like The Woman in Black or Ghost Stories is when an audience jumps, they tend to laugh straight after. It’s just another way of expelling all that tension. We’re essentially trying to do the same thing but the other way round.

Edinburgh audiences have followed Crybabies from your debut through to now. Does returning each time feel like coming home, or does it come with increasing pressure to surprise people?

We’re such infrequent Fringers that, in a way, you feel like you’re starting from scratch each time. And it’s not as if there’s been a shortage of global events to push us out of people’s memories. But we always wanted to debut this show in Edinburgh. It’s the festival that genuinely started our careers and we wouldn’t be making this show without it. This time though, we want to hit that sweet spot between familiarity and surprise. We want to give people some classic Crybabies fare but at the same time, give them moments that are completely unexpected.

You joked that only two of you actually did the horror film homework because Ed fell asleep during Rosemary's Baby. What have you, Michael and James, learnt from your studies?

We wish it were a joke. Ed genuinely conked out and still assumes that that film is about a nice couple just living in New York. But horror films have been simultaneously helpful and not so helpful. While they’re full of characters and set ups which are ripe for parodying, because we want our audience to leave feeling uplifted, their structure doesn’t always translate. Not many people left The Texas Chainsaw Massacre laughing and punching the air.

Without giving too much away, what line from the show do you hope audiences are quoting long after the laughs - and the scares - have worn off?

One of our favourite jokes in the show is from a character who’s whole schtick is telling awful jokes. Now comedy purists might argue, why didn’t you just try and write a good joke? Well to those people we say… actually, you know what, come back to us.

Crybabies: The Scaring will be performed at 8pm at Pleasance Courtyard from 5th – 30th August Booking link:https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/crybabies-scaring