Father Christmas is a hilarious, heartfelt stand-up show about festive joy, family and the Christmas Day that changed everything.
TICKET LINK: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/chris-forbes-father-christmas
Father Christmas combines festive nostalgia with personal loss — what drew you to explore Christmas as both a joyful and emotionally complicated subject for comedy?
Christmas is such an emotionally charged holiday. As much as it can be ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, it can also be fraught with stress, pressure and family conflict. It’s also fascinating how your relationship with Christmas changes over time, from the magic of childhood to the more practical realism of adulthood. For me personally, I’ve experienced some of life’s biggest highs and lows around this time of year and it’s altered my perception of both the events and Christmas itself. For these reasons, I’ve wanted to do a show about Christmas for a long time. It’s also a lot of fun to transport people to a festive frame of mind in the middle of summer!
The show promises “big laughs with beautiful storytelling”; how do you approach balancing humour and heartbreak without one overwhelming the other?
It’s always a delicate balance to get right but I’ve always felt it was important to find the humour in the darkest moments of your life – even if it takes you a long time to get to a place where you’re ready to laugh about it. It’s taken me 16 years to feel like I was ready to do this show and hopefully that’s given me the time to find that balance. At the end of the day, I’m a comedian and I want to do a show that’s funny and entertaining. But at the same time, I want to say something interesting and that hopefully connects with people even if its through exploring a difficult subject matter. The adage is true. Tragedy + Time = Comedy.
Christmas traditions often reveal a lot about family dynamics — did revisiting your own memories for the show change the way you think about those relationships?
One of my favourite things about working on this show over the last year was digging out old Christmas photos and talking about memories with my family. It’s strange because a lot of Christmases blend and you forget so much. It’s funny how each person’s memory has held on to different moments or elements. I would say it reminded me of how many wonderful days we all shared together and definitely made me nostalgic for a simpler time. My siblings and I are obviously all grown up and have families of our own that we are now trying to create magic for, so you almost feel envious of the younger versions of ourselves I see in the photos.
Audiences know you both as a stand-up and through characters like Scot Squad’s PC Charlie MacIntosh and Duncan Murray — how different is it performing as yourself in a deeply personal show?
It’s very different as there’s nowhere to hide. I’ve always loved character comedy and have performed as different characters and sketch shows in the past (Damien Crow & How Do I get Up there?). It gives you a kind of freedom to say things you might not say as yourself. But with this show, I’ve got no choice but to reveal a bit more of myself. Honesty in comedy is one of the most important elements and, it might sound cliché, but it is very cathartic. It’s an honour and a privilege to have a platform to say something and to have an audience to listen to it. So I’m trying to make sure that something is worthwhile. I’m also aware and very grateful that Scot Squad and Duncan Murray have given me so much, and I’ve normally always addressed those roles in previous fringe outings, as I’ve never wanted to disappoint anyone who’s come to hear about those aspects of my work. Hopefully I’ve earned people’s trust to do this show now.
Father Christmas is arriving at the Fringe in the middle of summer — what makes the contrast between Edinburgh in August and Christmas themes theatrically appealing to you?
The contrast in itself is appealing because I’ve always loved shows that transport me immediately to another time or place. I want people to walk into the room and instantly feel like they are in a show and about to hear and see something unique and unexpected. When people walk in off the street in shorts and t-shirts and find themselves in a winter wonderland with Christmas music blaring, it’s part of the experience. It also just looks and feels funny. I don’t want to give too much away, but I think when people have seen my show, they’ll understand why I’m performing it at this time of year. Ironically, Christmas is probably the only time of year I wouldn’t want to perform this show.
Your work often finds warmth and humour in everyday Scottish life — why do you think comedy rooted in very specific personal experiences can still feel universal to audiences everywhere?
Because no matter how much you think your personal experience is unique to you, you are never alone. You sometimes worry that you’re the only one who thinks a certain way or has experienced a certain thing…but there are always other people in a similar boat or whose similar experience will resonate with it. At the end of the day, there are universal emotions that most stories are rooted in – love, fear, guilt, loss etc. Whatever your story is, people can connect to the raw human emotion of it. That’s all we are all striving for at the end of the day, isn’t it? Human connection.