Interview with Max Fulham

Me: Why don't you just start by telling. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Max: I am a comedian and ventriloquist and my debut Fringe this year. After having watched stuff at the Fringe for many, many years. I grew up just outside Edinburgh and so it's sort of. It's been a long time coming and it's been great so far. I know I've only done a week, but it's been really good so far. 

Me: How does it feel for you, obviously, growing up near Edinburgh? How does it feel to finally come back and actually do a show at the fringe? 

Max: A lot of it's surreal because I'm so used to seeing Edinburgh in a certain way as an audience member watching shows. So then to be then also still watching shows and still doing the stuff that I. The way I know it, but then also popping down backstage and setting up to do my own show is a bit ridiculous. And still, you know, I'm standing there where the audience are coming in and it feels quite like I'm in the wrong place because I need to be on the other side of that. But it's great, it's so wonderful. And I'm thrilled to be at the Pleasance Courtyard as well, because it's such an iconic area of the Edinburgh Fringe. So it's very, very special. 

Me: Can you just give us a bit of a summary of what audiences can expect in your show? 

Max: Big themes, hard hitting emotional scenes are not occurring in my show. It is a slightly bonkers dash through various things. There are sketches, character comedy and stand up, all combined with ventriloquism, essentially. Seeing what happens. Can I put down the puppet? What happens if the voices come from other places? Where do voices crop up in our everyday lives? I think we've all got a sort of little inner voice in our heads, but bit of an angel and a devil situation. But yeah, that's probably the most relatable aspect. And then it just gets more bonkers from there, really. Who knows, you might even meet Jesus and there's a birthday party as well. 

Me: Obviously, as this is your debut show, how did you find the writing and development process? 

Max: Really interesting. Because it's the first time I put a show together for a specific purpose like this and gone right, I need a new show, whereas before I'm putting together acts for various shorter length things or a show will develop over time, whereas this One was, I need a new show, my first full fringe show. So it's a really interesting process. It's been quite a long one. Been doing work in progress since last autumn. And so the ideas have been involved for quite a while now. It's been a really fun project. It's been my first time to branch out and try stuff in work in progresses and sort of learn to accept that it might not work, which has been quite freeing to go, oh, okay, we'll see how this goes. And it's fine if it goes either way, because that's the process. It taught me to trust the process a bit more than I maybe have before, because you can't. The unfortunate truth is, unless you're a wizard, you can't necessarily just sit down and write the goals. You have to write down your ideas, try them out, tweak them, fail, keep going. So it's been a nice lesson in trusting process, I think.

Me: You've had nice things said about you from loads of people, like Mel Giedroyc & Terry Fator. So how was finding the balance between doing sort of like stand up, sort of sketches and ventriloquism?

Max: It is all about balance. I think it's really interesting to say the word balance, because that is a word that has been used across every aspect of creating this show, both from the show itself in sort of chats with my director and stuff, but also in the graphic design element of it, the poster design, the flyer design. Balance has been talked about the whole time. Because I. I want it to look silly, I want it to look fun, but I don't want it to look too juvenile or kiddy. And I also didn't want it to look too man with a puppet, because I think that's what people expect from ventriloquism. So it was how we captured the aesthetic of something silly and something ventriloquism related, and the idea of things coming to life without sticking a poster full of puppets and calling it Max and Friends. And I think I'm sort of a massive nerd of comedy and ventriloquism. So I know a lot about the old stuff as well. I think it's really important to look back at what's gone before before you start trying to progress an art form. And so I think that's helped as well. Playing with people's preconceptions about what they're expecting from a ventriloquist, flipping that on its head a bit, and then doing something that they didn't expect at all. And I think one of the chats I had with my director was that my stage Persona is very much a fairly typical entertainer. I'd say, like, I can come across a bit sort of shiny floor, which can be quite old school, but I think that allows me because that sort of disarms an audience in a way that allows me to then do some really weird things because they'll go with me. So that's really nice. It's been good to. It's been good to do some weird stuff. 

Me: Speaking of slightly unusual stuff, your show's called Full of Ham, you give voices to some unexpected objects, one of which is ham. What inspired you to make that choice?

Max: Well, I was sort of one day thinking about everyone's favorite childhood anthropomorphised meat snack, which is Billy Bear ham. And you can't argue with me because that is a fact. Everyone love's it. And I thought, that’s got a mouth, I could make that talk. And I took a picture of some Billy Bear ham on my phone, printed it out, mounted it onto the back of a cereal box, and then started fiddling around with elastic bands and essentially made myself a pocket of some ham. And it went from there, really. So, you know, sometimes two AM is a nice time to do things like that. And those ideas evolved from there. You know, Full of Ham as a title. I hadn't even come up with the ham idea before I came up with that title because my name was Max Fulham and then the ham came about and I went, well, that's convenient, isn't it? Because now I look like I've got vague feeling going on. So that was useful. 

Me: And obviously you had a lot of influences. 

Max: Yeah. 

Me: Who would you say is your biggest one? Especially more creating this show as well. Like, I feel like there's quite a few influences that have inspired you. 

Max: Interesting. Well, I think we've all got, like, comedy heroes, really. I don't think there’s been one singular inspiration for this. I've always been massively inspired by Harry Hill. I think he's a genius and I think people discount it because it's silly and they. In some ways, you want people to forget that there is craft behind it, because if you're making it look easy. That’s the point. He's such a great joke writer and I think that was hugely inspirational. And the energy, the madness of. With all the overlapping threads is really nice. And I think I sort of had quite a lot of overlapping voices and how a voice could be a constant throughout the show, even though I'm doing something else with another voice, get to chip in and creating chaos like that. But in terms of ventriloquism, it, again, varies massively. Terri Rogers was an incredible ventriloquist. She was. She was amazing. And Ray Allen was probably the master. Nina Conti, who was, of course, tearing up the fringe. I remember watching her in the Kingdome over the Pleasance Dome when I was a lot younger, and the way she took ventriloquism and morph theatrical direction at that time was just so inspiring. It's a massive mix of inspiration from across the venture, comedy and beyond. Because I wanted the shows have a slightly weirder look as well, in terms of the design of some of the puppets. So, yeah, it's nice to sort of take from everywhere. 

Me: I have a couple of friends who do ventriloquism. But they wanted me to ask this question to you. Taking you back to Gottle O' Geer. 

Max: Oh, yeah. 

Me: How did it feel to be with Lenny the Lion? 

Max: Oh, my goodness. Right, so to contextualise this, this was an event I helped produce earlier in the year, which was a celebration of British ventriloquism. Over the years, I got to do a little spot with Lenny the Lion, who's an iconic ventriloquist puppet. It was funny, very stressful because quite a lot of pressure using such an iconic character like Lenny. And it's the most difficult puppet I've ever used as well, because it's totally cac handed, because you've got one live hand, which was my left hand, and then you've got your right hand in the head, which means it has to cross your body. So it's a totally backwards control. So it took a long time to get to grips with it. And also it was quite stressful having to produce the event. So I'd only had about two hours sleep, so just trying not to move my lips, essentially. And obviously to sort of get somewhere close to the voice as well. You want to do it justice. So, yes, in a word, stressful. Really stressful. But lovely, but stressful as well. And I'm sort of covered in his fur for the rest of the day. It was just everywhere because it was quite old. I think it was a real fur as well. It was just molting everywhere. 

Me: Getting back to Full Of Ham. Do you have any plans to take this show further?

Max: Oh my goodness. I would like to. I'd love the show to have a life beyond the fringe. I just sort of want as many people to see it as possible. I'd love to see what happens. But even if it wasn't that full show, I think there's some characters and ideas that have occurred in this show that I can see growing beyond the show as well. I'm excited to see where some of this stuff goes. 

Me: So I attended your show the other night. You can read my review live on my website now. I will link it to the bottom of this article. What is it like for you if this is their first time experiencing ventriloquism? 

Max: Interesting. Oh, it's lovely. If it's someone's first time, it's not even young people necessarily that are experiencing that first time because so many audience members here and elsewhere will say to me this, it's their first time seeing ventriloquism live. And I think that's one of the reasons why people have preconceptions about what it is, is because they are seeing things online or in other media. So yes, it's really nice to be someone's first taste of that, I think. And there's been a few, sort of, few younger people in it. It's a twelve plus and it is quite sweary. But it's up to the parents really. But yeah, it's lovely, especially if they enjoy it. I don't want to put them off for life. 

Me: I'm going to wrap up with the last couple of questions because I know that your time is very valuable. But the last couple of questions I have for you. Your show does feature audience participation. I think personally that it takes quite a skill to read someone's body language and read off of that. So how is that for you as a performer? Maybe not exactly knowing what they're going to feel like?

Max: It's difficult, it is risky. But at the same time I think I'm really passionate about all this participation being done correctly and kindly. Anyone who is involved in my show instantly becomes a sort of hero in the show. And I would only ever give them something I don't necessarily want. I don't want to make them look silly. I want them to be part of the comedy. But they're not going to look like an absolute fool. If anything, they're going to be a champion in a show that gets a massive reaction and yeah, doing it with kindness and consideration. But you hope that people are there for fun and by some point in the show they'll trust me enough to join me. But yes, it's definitely a process of. As soon as I walk out there, even though I'm doing other material, I'm sort of trying to start gauging various people's reactions to see who might be viable. 

Me: As you have loads of different ideas of things you can make talk. What's one household object that you would want to give a voice to?

Max: At the moment it's probably between bin or corkscrew because corkscrews have the little arms and they fly up and they're quite fun. So it can either be like I surrender, you can try that at home, or he can put his arms out to the side and sort of wiggle them a bit like a zumba class. So yeah, if you're at home, crack on your bottle of wine and have a zumba class with your corkscrew. 

Me: What are you hoping the audiences will take away from your show? Full of ham. 

Max: I have. They leave sort of with a bit of giddy joy in them. Have a good laugh for an hour. Yeah, I don't have a massive moral message. The vibe is very much. Come and sit in this little room with me. I've got some fun things to show you. We'll have a laugh, that's all. Let's just sort of gather some people together and we'll have a good laugh. That's what I want. I want to have a good laugh there.

Me: Well, you can catch Max Fulham in Full Of Ham. It plays at the Pleasance Courtyard at 18:40 in the cellar. You've had a few sold out shows now. 

Max: Yes, we have them on the board. Book in advance.

Me: Unfortunately, if you can't make it up to Edinburgh, you can also see Max down in panto in Peter Pan at the end of the year. Would you like to tell everybody where that's going to be? 

Max: It's going to be in Southampton, AKA Neverland. 

Me: You can see him down there as well. So thank you, Max. I really appreciate your time. And I hope you have a wonderful sell out rest of the festival. 

Max: Cheers. Thanks so much. We'll have some fun.

To hear my thoughts on Full Of Ham just click this link right here: https://www.thetheatrereviewer.com/blog/tags/ventriloquism