A 37 year old teaches you how to live to 100! We sat down with David Hoare to discuss their upcoming performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
David Hoare
‘How to Live to 100’
17:40 | 7th – 31st (not 19th) | Hoots, Nicholson Square (Nic 3)
Tickets are available here.
What was the biggest lesson you learned from meeting someone who had actually reached 100?
They all seem to be drinking consistently and eating a lot of jam. Drinking seems to be their mental health activity. A drink at lunch, a drink in the evening. No more, no less. Like how millennials all try to journal or meditate. They’re remarkably consistent with it. They also seem to all be eating jam. A lot of jam.
Has researching longevity made you more hopeful or more confused about how we age?
I was initially confused. But now I am far more hopeful. My main hope is that I embrace my own aging gracefully. Not accepting how one ages can only cause more problems.
How do you turn a subject like mortality into comedy without losing its emotional weight?
The subject is rather universal which helps. I am not losing momentum by trying to explain the premise. So from there, it is about putting my comedic voice on the different facets of mortality. I am also getting laughs from how I really feel about the subject. Mike Birbiglia says if you don’t know where to go with a bit, ask yourself how you really feel about it. I think asking the question of my true feelings opens up more areas into where I can put jokes.
My favourite stand up shows are the ones that are very very silly but are also actually about something. Harriet Kemsley’s ‘Everything Always Works Out For Me’, Alison Spittle’s ‘Big’ and Chelsea Birkby’s new show ‘Chelsea Birkby: Is In Full Control The Entire Time’ are all comedically silly but are also shows that really address a topic meaningfully. That’s what I really like and what I am aiming to do with this show.
Did your early health challenges change the way you approached making this show?
Definitely. I had initially included some material referencing being born with a collapsed lung, purely as a real thing to write silly jokes about. But when I put my own life through the lense of the show’s premise, referencing my early health challenges took on new meaning and context, which surprised me greatly.
What surprised you most when comparing the lives of a centenarian and a D-Day survivor?
My girlfriend’s grandfather grew up in Switzerland. The evening we arrived in the USA, I had been awake for well over 20 hours. We had dinner with him and he started explaining, incredibly passionately, about how he thought dancing should always be sexual. We asked him when these dances were and he said “Early 1940’s… and we knew the war was happening around us, but that’s the way it was.” When I heard this, I was slightly delirious from travelling and time zone changes.
It wasn’t until I was talking to my godfather about his godfather, Roy Hayward, that I realised there was a significant difference between the 99 year old and the 100 year old. Roy survived D-Day but lost both his legs below the knee when his tank was shelled a few weeks later. One of them was passionately dancing whilst the other was storming Gold Beach, but both were able to go on to live rich, fulfilling, long lives.
If there were one secret to reaching 100, what do you think it might be?
I will reveal EXACTLY how to live to 100 years old in my show at the fringe this year. If you would like to learn this then do yourself a favour then buy a ticket to find out!