The Edinburgh Fringe has always been a place where groups of comedians have made comedy alliances over heroic quantities of alcohol and shared comedic tastes. Over the years this has produced a veritable smorgasbord of shows which have come to define the Fringe - from Phil Nichol’s various offerings through the Comedian’s Theatre Company, to Kitson, Zaltzman, Cochrane and O’Docherty’s inspired japery at the Honourable Men of Art.
One of the newer comedy collectives consists of core members Mark Watson, Alex Horne and Tim Key. The three friends have been working together on projects since 2001 and last year premiered the Fringe’s first interactive quiz show – We Need Answers. The Void met up with the trio to chat about how they were enjoying Fringe 2008 and how the late-night game show came about.

Mark Watson
We Need Answers pitches comedians into a quiz battle like no other. Each night there is a head-to-head where only the brainiest will march onto the next round. The winner (last year Paul Sinha beat Josie Long in a tense battle) is crowned quiz champion of the Fringe. This year’s entrants include Fringe legends like Rich Hall, Richard Herring and Dan Antopolski.
Alex explains how the show came about: “My wife met a guy from AQA [a text service which promises to answer any question for a quid] a couple of years ago who said he would like to work with us on something and Mark said he would like to do it. We all genuinely use AQA all the time – it’s really funny – so we said we would be interested in doing something with them.

Alex Horne
“Basically they supply us with all the questions which are sent in by people at the Fringe and we pick the best ones. For example, last year we had a question which was ‘how do you make an egg bouncy’. The answer is to soak it in vinegar for 48 hours.”
While the trio clearly work well together they are not afraid of letting comedians out of their circle of friends onto the show. Mark says: “We felt we should have an enjoyable mix of styles or there would be a danger of the whole thing becoming one big in-joke.” Tim adds: “It also adds an element of danger. When Brendon Burns arrived on the scene last year it got pretty interesting because we’re all basically quite scared of him.
“During one of Mark’s long shows me and Burnsy just screamed at him constantly and I ended up pretty much having a physical stand-off with him. This year we have Jim Jeffries appearing so we’ve just substituted one sociopathic Aussie for another.”
The show consists of various rounds with Mark hosting, Tim the question-master and Alex dealing with the technical side of things. It tends to end up being a fantastically chaotic hour and is the perfect late-night gig in that you never really know what direction it will take next.
Meanwhile, the three amigos are all continuing their day jobs with their own shows at the Fringe. Mark is playing the Pleasance Grand for the first time this year – one of the largest venues at the Fringe. Alex is performing a full run of his new show, Wordwatching, a follow-up, of sorts, to last year’s Birdwatching. Finally, Tim is taking it relatively easy this year performing a week-long run of comic play Freeze! which he co-wrote and stars in with Tom Basden.

Tim Key
So what is it about Edinburgh that keeps them coming back year after year? Mark explains: “It is only in Edinburgh that you can get this type of audience and it is the best place to get a large audience. I keep on thinking ‘next year I’ll stay at home’ but I’ve been here every year since 2000.
“I’m enjoying playing the Pleasance Grand this year. For the first couple of nights I was finding it hard to adjust to the size of the venue but since then it’s gone well.”
Alex chips in: “I started working on Wordwatching three years ago in 2005 and I am already working on a show for 2010 about golf. Next year I think I might have a year off though. I always plan well ahead with my shows because they tend to take a lot of work.”
Despite the talk of staying away, no doubt partly due to the torrid weather suffered by Edinburgh this August, hopefully all three will be back next year for We Need Answers 2009. The quiz show is fast becoming a Fringe tradition and has already spawning copycats such as Comedy Countdown.
As Tim puts it: “It really is an exceptionally drunken show and the most unpretentious show on the Fringe. I really like the questions we get to ask and it’s a really good chance to see Mark drunk on stage.”
David Hepburn
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We Need Answers is on at the Pleasance Theatre at 00.15 until 17 August 2008 To get an iea as to how the whole thing works, check out the clip below:


