David Hennessy spoke to playwright Meade Conway and cast members Frankie Weatherby and John Gregor about their Edinburgh Fringe play, How to Kill Your Landlord.
Last year London-based Irish playwright Meade Conway brought the play A Silent Scandal to the London stage as well as Edinburgh Fringe and Smock Alley in Dublin.
Starring Ben Carolan, Senna O’Hara and Eoghan Quinn, it told the story of the suppression of a scandal at a boys’ school.
It dealt with weighty themes such as child abuse and corruption of power.
Meade’s new offering looks at another weighty topic although through more of a comedic lens.
How to Kill Your Landlord shows the housing crisis for a farce that it is.
Harriet, Burke and Joq are three very different housemates.
Burke is surviving pay cheque to pay cheque in the rat race.
Joq is forever on the hunt for a new side hustle.
Harriet is a yoga instructor looking to corner the yummy mummy market.
As different as the three of them are, they are united against their landlord Archie.
Although the flat they share is in a horrible state of disrepair, Archie has no intention of fixing any of the issues and to make things worse he decides to throw them out with little notice knowing they have nowhere to go in this housing market.
It is then that they decide to give their landlord what he deserves.
He only cares about himself so what harm if some kind of accident befell on him, especially in a flat he has allowed to become an accident waiting to happen?
How to Kill Your Landlord, currently showing in Edinburgh as part of the Fringe, is a fun show despite the very real and serious issues it deals with.
Frankie Weatherby plays the role of Harriet while Robbie Fletcher- Hill plays Burke and Elijah Khan completes the trio of housemates as Joq. John Gregor portrays landlord Archie.
Playwright Meade and cast members Frankie and John, who has family connections to Ireland and in particular Sligo, chatted to the Irish World.
Where did the idea for How to Kill Your Landlord come from?
Meade: “Last time I spoke to you, we were just putting on A Silent Scandal.
“We went up to Edinburgh with it.
“We had a really good time.
“We actually were told it was going to be really tough and of course, people are saying that again this year because Edinburgh can be tough, but we ended up doing very well in Edinburgh. I was really happy.
“And then we brought the show back to Dublin and did really well in Dublin.
“But I get back from Dublin September of last year and my landlord says I have to be gone in the next month: Very short notice. Me and my flatmates, it was a very chaotic period of our lives.
“We managed to find a place and we also managed not to lose our friendships although it was very close at certain points.
“That’s where it came from.
“A Silent Scandal, as you know, is pretty serious drama and it could divide people and even if people liked it, they weren’t rushing to go back to see it.
“I wanted to stretch different creative muscles and had this idea of making something that people would be really happy and excited to go back to see and then come out of not feeling too heavy but just sort of perhaps joyful and happy.
“And then I got talking to the director Calum (Shiels) because I saw him direct a play and I just really liked its energy.
“It really opened my eyes to what you could do on stage and the kinds of comedy available.”
What were your first reactions to the script John and Frankie?
John: “I liked the idea of it.
“I liked that it was a comic look at the state of housing which is quite a farce so this was good having a bit of farce in it as well.
“I went along to a reading of the script and I really liked it.
“I really liked the characters in it so I was very much up for it.”
Frankie: “It was a really similar thing for me.
“I just remember reading the title and being like, ‘Well, that’s going to be quite funny’.
“Actually we’ve got little badges that have How to Kill your Landlord on them, I’ve got one of them on my bag and I get so many comments on it from members of the public.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s a show that we’re doing’.
“And then they always go, ‘Oh, we’ve all hated our landlords in the past, haven’t we?’
“And the thing that I really liked about this show is you read it and you’re like the mould, the electricity, the bathroom, all of this stuff that’s wrong and we’ve all lived in places where there’s just so many issues and the landlord’s just been like, ‘I don’t know, open your window’.
“It’s insane.”
And it needed the comedy because a straight drama about these very real issues would just be depressing. It is often better to deal with serious issues through comedy, isn’t it?
Frankie: “There is something hilarious about it.
“My main experience with it was being a student and being in student houses that were falling down and had infestations and had black mould and all of this stuff and everyone just kind of being like, ‘It is what it is. You’re a student’ and there’s something quite funny about that.
“It’s sort of horrible but it’s also quite funny.”
John: “I wasn’t a student but when I was first in London, the types of places that I could afford would have lots and lots of problems with them and you got stuck in this thing of saying, ‘Oh well, that’s kind of what you have to expect if you’re paying low rent’.
“And some of the things that would happen, it would kind of be like comedy.
“A number of times I’ve had sleepless nights over stuff that’s gone wrong or ‘that landlord is going to throw me out’.
“Like Meade I’ve been evicted before from places with very short notice but you go, ‘One day I’ll look back on this and laugh’.
“And that’s kind of what this play is really.”
It’s easy to say that these characters could just move out but the housing crisis being what it is, they literally have nowhere to go. As imperfect as the flat is, they need to keep that roof over their head..
Meade: “Absolutely and they all have a good emotional reason for it as well.
“They probably would survive the eviction but they kind of just say, ‘Enough is enough, we have got to take a stand for something’ in their own ways.
“And people who come out of the play say it’s not hugely simplistic that the flatmates are in the right, they’re flawed people as well but I think it makes them a bit more entertaining, a bit more comedic.”
The three housemates are an odd trio, you wonder somewhat how the three of them came together..
Meade: “I know some people have moved in with friends and it’s damaged friendships and it’s really hard whereas it’s great to move in with people you don’t know and actually adapt to people who you would otherwise not have bumped into.
“That’s something I really want with the characters.
“They’re all very, very different.
“One wants the revolution, one of them is sort of wealthy and nice, all about veganism, and another one is just pure crypto.
“They all have these very different worlds and it’s partially due to housing crisis and stuff that they do have to share with each other so they’re kind of getting their own back when they push back against the crisis.
“I think it’s really nice as well when you just happen to live with people and become friends with them despite your differences and despite how gross individuals are.
“I wanted the characters to have weird little gross habits that are just intolerable but in a funny way, they’ve all gotten kind of used to their eccentricities.”
Frankie: “But also when you move in with your friends and then you discover a weird, gross habit or something that you don’t particularly like about them, it can taint the friendship whereas if you move in with someone you don’t know, you kind of accept them as they are because you have no expectation for them.
“That’s probably why they’re sort of okay: Harriet, Burke and Joq.
“They squabble and they point out each other’s flaws all the time but they are friends because they entered into this thing knowing nothing about each other and then finding out, ‘Oh f**k, I’m stuck with these guys’.”
John: “I’ve been in rented accommodation in London for well over 20 odd years.
“Sometimes you move with a group of people and then find actually you don’t know them as well as you thought you knew them and then other times you move in with people just random, you get interviewed by the other tenants as to whether they’re going to like you and that’s always a very bizarre thing.
“And you get little quirks of people and oftentimes people change.
“I was living in a nice house share in Clapton and one of the guys, unfortunately, became alcoholic and so it completely changed his personality.
“He became a completely different person and also he ran up these huge bills when he was really drunk and then couldn’t remember that he made all these phone calls or run up all this stuff so sometimes you’re suddenly thrown into all sorts of different situations, having to cope with people and also sometimes you might like the person that you’re living with but their friends come around and you don’t like their friends, or their friends steal your stuff.
“Sometimes it’s the small things like in the play.
“You come home and someone’s eaten your food.
“You open up your margarine and it’s all gone because someone else has had it.
“These kind of things start to really ratchet up in their relationship.”
Meade: “Just to give context for all this up in Edinburgh, they’re all going to be living together in an apartment.
“Me and the director are going to try our best to make sure the play doesn’t get reenacted in real life.”
How are you looking forward to taking this to Edinburgh?
Meade: “The good news is we’ve managed to sell tickets every day so far which is to your first worry. The classic Edinburgh experience is playing to an audience of zero and just trying to figure out what to do in that scenario.
“We’ve avoided that which is great.
“But John in particular was telling me after our last preview that he felt it was really on a good footing and I have to agree.
“I did caution him to say that we haven’t even started the battle yet so we can’t be counting our eggs before they hatch.
“But I will say all the variables that we can have an influence on we have in a good place which I’m really happy with.
“We’ve put the play on now a few times before we’ve had people come to see it, people like it and there’s a good energy.”
John: “I’m very excited about it.
“As Meade was saying I think the show’s in a good place and as Frankie said earlier, the title itself alone sells a ticket.
“The moment I’ve talked to anyone they say, ‘Oh, what’s the show called?’ The moment I say what the title is. everyone’s suddenly really interested.”
Meade: “The question I get a lot as well, ‘Oh, what’s it about?’
“And then my response is always, ‘What do you think?’
John: “I usually get stories and people go, ‘Oh, I’ve wanted to do that’.
“So I think it’s already kind of sold quite a bit on just the name.”
Frankie: “I’m really excited.
“It’s going to be an experience, hopefully a good one.
“I feel the same about the show.
“I think it’s suited to Edinburgh.
“I think it’s a good show to take to Edinburgh Fringe.
“I think people are going to enjoy it.
“We’ll just see what happens.
“I feel like we’re ready which is a nice feeling.
“I feel like the show is ready to be put on a stage in front of an audience.
“We have kind of done it a couple of times but it’s felt more like it’s been a preview and now I think we’re kind of ready to do a proper show and I’m excited to do it, to do a run of it and see what changes and what new things come into it because I feel like we’ve been rehearsing for quite a long time.
“It’s been through lots of different phases so I’m excited to see where it goes when we’re up there.”
What have the reactions been like so far?
Frankie: “What’s interesting to me is just what different people find funny is always completely different.
“Every time you do a do a show, people laugh at things and if you’ve been rehearsing it for weeks or whatever, you’ve become kind of not desensitised to it but you just know what you found funny and you know what the people in the room find particularly funny.
“And you try something and you’re, ‘Oh, that’s going to make people really laugh, and then it doesn’t’.
“And then they laugh at a random moment that you didn’t even think was funny.
“That’s always really fun.
“People always say, ‘Oh yeah, you were great. It was really good’.
“But we get instantly reviewed when you do the comedy by what they’re laughing at and we know how well we’re clicking based on that, I guess.”
John: “And it changed.
“We did two nights at the Drayton arms, I found that there were laughs we got one night that we didn’t get the next night and so it was very much, as Frankie says, a very, very different audience.
“People are people and they find different things funny or they get different things from it.
“So that’s kind of a good preparation for what Edinburgh is going to be like.
“Some people will find bits funny, some people won’t find bits funny and some people basically won’t like it.
“But it will be very interesting.”
Frankie: “That’s what Meade keeps saying to us every time we have a chat about Edinburgh.
“He’s like, ‘Remember some people are not going to like the show, and that’s okay’.”
Beyond Edinburgh would you like to bring it back to London or elsewhere?
Meade: “Yeah, I’m a big fan of continuing it on.
“We’ve currently just invested sort of all our attention and energy into Edinburgh and it isn’t Edinburgh show so it’s that’s mostly we’re targeting but I’ll definitely be looking towards that.
“I think the advantage of the show, because of its content and its themes, it would probably be as apt in Dublin as it would be in Paris, as it would be in Edinburgh would be in Glasgow, because we have a housing crisis like the world over in the developed world.
“The last show you saw, because it was so distinctly Irish, I was definitely very eager to get it over in Ireland and it did very well in Ireland which I’m grateful for, whereas this can go anywhere in the developed world so I might be looking further afield, but we’ll just see how well we do in Edinburgh first.”
How to Kill Your Landlord is at Bedlam Theatre, Bristo Place, Edinburgh until 25 August as part of Edinburgh Fringe.