12:00pm Saturday 31st July 2010
By Andrew Ffrench
ACTORS from Oxford are heading to one of the Edinburgh Fringe’s best-known venues with their successful comedy sketch revue show.
Patrick Turpin, 22, Annie McGrath, 20 and Jack Barry, all from Oxford, are part of The Leeds Tealights comedy sketch group.
From Thursday until August 29, they will be performing in the Scottish capital at the Underbelly venue.
To warm up for the popular comedy and drama festival, The Leeds Tealights performed for the first time in front of an Oxford audience, at Headington School, on Wednesday.
Following several shows in London, the group, which features seven members, will travel to Edinburgh for the festival.
Mr Turpin, a co-producer who has acted for the Leeds Tealights in previous years, is a former Cheney School pupil.
He said: “Annie went to Headington School and Jack went to Cherwell School, and we are all studying at Leeds University.
“I have performed at the fringe with the Tealights in 2008 and 2009, and Annie has also performed at the fringe, but it will be Jack’s first time at the festival, so he is very excited.
“We have been getting good reviews for performances around the country but performing at the Edinburgh Fringe is a big challenge.
“Some of the best comic performers in the country will be there, including Al Murray, pub landlord, and Stewart Lee.
“There are so many shows that you have to compete to get people’s attention and we have to compete with students from Cambridge Footlights or the Oxford Revue.
“People might only go and see one student comedy sketch show, so we have to try to get ourselves noticed.
“The Leeds Tealights have been performing in Edinburgh every year since they formed in 2006, but the Underbelly is one of the city’s best-known venues.
“It has a capacity of about 125 people and it’s the biggest venue in Edinburgh we have played in so far.”
Mr Turpin said this year’s sketch show called For Your Sins got a good reception at Headington School.
He added: “I would love to perform or produce on a TV show one day and Edinburgh is a great place to test the water.
“At the same time you also need to have more modest aspirations because it could take five or 10 years to get where you want to be.
“If we were able to make a living from doing this then that would be amazing.
“At Edinburgh you do get a real sense of what acts are on the cusp of making the transfer from stage to TV and that’s very exciting.”
The Leeds Tealights have won a number of accolades in recent years.
Last year, the actors won a National Student Radio Award in the best scripted category for their podcast on Leeds Student Radio.
And actor Max Dickins, 22, is a 2009 and 2010 finalist in the Chortle Student Comedian of the Year awards. For further information visit leedstealights.co.uk
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