Blog

What inspired you to become a performer?

I never would have made the kind of work that I do if it wasn’t for the Fringe. I saw Trygve Wakenshaw perform his show Squidboy and it just blew my mind – here was this rubber-limbed idiot, performing to a sold-out crowd, who are crying with laughter and sometimes just crying. I couldn’t believe it. It looked like the greatest job in the world.

How did you come up with the concept for your show, ‘Luke Rollason, Luke Rollason, Let Down Your Hair’’?

It was purely accidental. I think most of my shows come about by accident. What usually happens is, I discover a stupid idea and decide to perform it at an experimental gig, just for fun, because there’s no way I could do it in a show. And then I end up building a whole show around it. The seed for Let Down Your Hair was – I’ve had this head massager (those weird claws you put on your head) for ages and been determined to use it onstage. I once had this number in my old show where I was a stuffed toy in a claw machine, but it was just a really convoluted way of getting an audience member onstage… 

Anyway, I was messing around looking for an idea, and I stuck a loo roll on the head massager so it could balance on my head whilst unfurling. And you do that onstage – then that’s hair, now you have long hair that the audience is climbing up, you must be Rapunzel – that’s easy. Everyone (or at least, almost everyone) gets it. 

Performing that for the first time was a revelation. As a physical comedian, I’m happiest when I don’t have to explain an idea. The less you explain, the more mystery you have, and the more mystery the more possibility of the audience misunderstanding you in a way that leads to the unexpected. I realised fairytales – these strange little stories that are buried in our group consciousness, thanks to our parents – were something I could do without having to explain what I was doing.

Can you share any challenges or surprises you’ve encountered while developing and performing this show?

Discovering I’m a way worse mime than I thought I was! The show originally had this three-part mime story about a man trying to hail a taxi, but he ends up riding around pedestrians piggy-back style. It wasn’t until four shows in that I realised that absolutely no-one knew what was going on. I think because I do physical comedy people always call me a mime, and I’d started to believe them.

The description mentions a mix of Kings, Clowns, and an “absolutely hideous duck.” Can you tease a bit more about these characters?

I’m never sure of the best way to explain this show to people, but here’s one attempt – it’s a palindromic carousel of archetypes from fairytales. So: I am a King, then a Princess, then a duck, then a Fisherman, then a Mermaid. And then the show runs back in reverse. So: it’s:

King-Princess-Duck-Fisherman-Mermaid-Fisherman-Duck-Princess-King.

(I suggested this as a title and my producers HATED it).

There’s a Wizard in there too, some place. And some bears. I realised fairly late into the process that all these stories are about troubled parent-child relationships – and relationships where baggage is passed from one generation to another. That’s either via expectations, or literal curses passed on from father to son, to son again. I’m trying to explore this structurally in the show – ideas are passed, echoed and distorted from one generation to the next. Is this a way of justifying lazily repeating myself? Maybe! 

 I don’t have a family curse myself, by the way, as far as I know. My parents are coming to the Jacksons Lane show, so I might find out then.

 Congratulations on your nomination for Best New Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival 2024! What can audiences expect from your performance at the London Clown Festival, and why should they come to see it?

You should expect seriously unexpected creative uses of toilet roll, and never to look at the stuff the same way again. That’s a warning. I will radically redefine your relationship to bog roll.

You can catch Luke Rollason Luke Rollason Let Down Your Hair on Wednesday 17 July 2024 at 7:30pm. Book your tickets here.