Interview: Harry and Chris

For two performances on Saturday, November 3, The Wardrobe Theatre welcomes world poetry slam champion (and Bristol Uni maths graduate) Harry Baker and jazz musician (and oh-so-nearly Young Voldemort – read on) Chris Read for a night of live music and spoken word.

After sell-out runs of their 2016 and 2017 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, Harry Baker and Chris Read have been featured three times on ‘The Russell Howard Hour’ (Sky) and have been touring regularly around the UK. Last year they prevented a apocalypse and got a panda pregnant, so they are now drunk on comedy-rap-jazz power, intent on bringing love and laughter to a world that needs both more than ever.

Here is the tunesome twosome.

So, poetry and jazz: a match made in heaven?
A match made in Texas. Sort of. We’ve always played together since school – but it was only as we shared a greasy burger and some local whiskey in the hot tub of a stranger’s house that we thought we could maybe make a go of this.
Harry then instantly threw up in the bushes so we knew it was a powerful combo. The first year up at Edinburgh we called it poetry and jazz and people were surprised at how fun it was – so we often throw comedy and rap into the description now, just to confuse people a bit more.

What sorts of topics are you tackling in your new show?
All of ‘em. We learn quite early in the show that we have comedy-rap-jazz superpowers and try to apply them to the important things in life such as the environment, England’s World Cup chances and Teletubbies. But there’s also a chance for people to shout out things that are affecting their lives and have them comedy-rap-jazzified there and then.

What do you think you might both be doing with your lives, if not this?
Harry went to Bristol Uni and studied maths so would possibly be using that, although a highlight of his studies was doing a survey for the Psychology department on whether having a beer affected your ability to do crosswords and being paid £20 for the trouble, so if there wasn’t the option of this kind of Q+A that would be the next choice. Chris was once sixth choice to play Young Voldemort in one of the Harry Potter films so he’d probably be hanging around waiting to drop that into conversation, or surveys about beer and crosswords.

How much do you find yourself interacting with audiences?
As much as possible. Even now this is interacting with a possible future audience (please come to our show – I think Bristol might even be sold out but Bath isn’t too far away and definitely isn’t). We’ve also got more confident on stage responding to what the audience gives us, and especially on our tour shows that makes it a lot more fun.

How does the creative process work for you two? Idea first, music later? Or are things more fluid than that?
It starts with an idea, then a bit of music, then a bit more idea, then way too much music in Harry’s opinion, then a bit too much idea to balance it out before settling on the sweet spot. It used to be Harry writing a whole poem and bringing it to Chris to put music to, or Chris writing a song with a gap for a rap (a #rapgap), but it’s become a lot more fluid, so often we’re both working on different parts of the same song at the same time via Google Docs (other cloud-based systems are available).

Complete the sentence: “This will be a great evening for fans of…”
“… Harry and/or Chris. Comedy and/or rap and/or poetry and/or jazz.”
Also for fans of the phrase and/or. We try to be uplifting and have fun, so if that is the sort of thing you’re into we heartily recommend it.

Harry & Chris are at The Wardrobe Theatre on Nov 3 and Komedia, Bath on Dec 18. For more info, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/harry-chris-save-world and www.komedia.co.uk/bath/comedy/harry-chris-save-the-world