Interview: Sleeping Trees on SCI-FI?

Award-winning sketch comedy trio Sleeping Trees bring their acclaimed cinematic adventure SCI-FI? to the Wardrobe Theatre this weekend. We spoke to writer/performers James Dunnell-Smith, Joshua George Smith and John Woodburn to find out more.

So, tell us about SCI-FI?
It’s essentially a comedy sci-fi epic that we perform without the use of any set or props, soundtracked live on stage by our one-man band, the ever-mysterious Ben Hales. There are tonnes of characters, robots with guns for hands, full-on space wars and a delightful little pig called Mary.

Who and what are your influences? And is the show geared to film, comedy and/or theatre fans?
We’re particularly influenced by comedy shows we grew up with like The League of Gentlemen, Blackadder, The Mighty Boosh and Reeves and Mortimer, and we like to feel there’s a little bit of all of them in our work.
Primarily we try and appeal to comedy fans, but with SCI-FI?, we did spend a huge amount of time making sure we came up with a great story and presented it in a way that was both pleasing to fans of theatre and film.

The show is the third in a trilogy – do we need to be up to speed with the backstory?
Thankfully not! The previous two in the trilogy are the same style of show, but completely different stand-alone stories. The first was MAFIA?, our gangster flick, and the second was WESTERN?, our attempt at a Wild Western. Secretly we think SCI-FI? is the cream of the movie crop.

You’ve been working and performing together for years – how has your creative process changed in that time?
Yes, we’ve been working together since 2009, and living together since 2012! So it’s an extremely intense situation. I think our process has changed a little over the years, we tend to work a lot more from scripts these days, but on the whole it’s about just getting a shape of a show and then putting it in front of an audience. That’s the only way you can get a grasp on what works and what doesn’t. There are always sections in our shows where we improvise too, so when some of that stuff lands it can find it’s way into the script too.

Your shows are very fast paced and tightly choreographed – how likely is it that one of you will slip up?
We tend to rehearse the shows rigorously before touring, to minimise the chances of slip-ups – however, you can never count them out! We do pride ourselves on being tight and slick when moving between scenes but we’d be lying if we said there hadn’t been the occasional lapse of concentration! If it does happen though we can’t ignore it, it will get brought up so the audience can enjoy laughing at the mistake as well as us. I guess that’s a product of living together, if any of us make any sort of mistake ever, it’s like a mini-victory for the other two.

SCI-FI? is at the Wardrobe Theatre on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/sleeping-trees-sci-fi