Musical comedian's first UK tour heads to the Phoenix Theatre

This October, Tawny Owl, a full-time musician and musical comedian, will be performing their show, The Adventures of Tawny Owl, A Musical Comedy Odyssey, at the Phoenix Theatre. 

Exeter Today spoke with Tawny Owl to learn more about his journey so far and his thoughts about the upcoming tour.

Tawny Owl, otherwise known as Andy, started doing alternative musical comedy in London two and a half years ago.

He delivered a successful split bill performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last summer, attracting over 800 attendees, earning a four-star review, and raising £100 in donations each night equating to a total of £2,000 across the whole Fringe.

Despite this success, he still lost over £2,000 due to Edinburgh’s notoriously high accommodation costs.

Tawny Owl soon realised that returning to Edinburgh Fringe this year was unviable when a student accommodation in the city offered him a room for an eye-watering £3,800 a month, £1,700 more than the price paid the previous year.

“At that point, it's nearly £4000 that’s not going towards my show or promoting the show in any way; it's just to exist in Edinburgh at that time.”

Deciding to take an alternative and more cost-effective career route, Tawny Owl has chosen Exeter as one of the 25 cities to perform in for their first ever UK tour.

“It's kind of a wild journey. I genuinely don't know anyone else that’s doing it on the comedy scene because it's basically a crazy amount of work on top of that. I love Edinburgh, and last year was amazing, but I’ve decided to go it alone and see what happens.

“The funny thing is that I love comedy, but all my favourite comedians aren’t musical comedians. I just happen to be a professional musician as well. In my first year of comedy, I didn’t bring an instrument on stage because I didn’t want to use it as a crutch. After that, a friend of mine said, ‘If you don’t at least try and use the music, then you’re an idiot because you’ve got this great thing you can use.’

“I definitely don’t think I’d be doing an hour of stand up if I didn’t have the musical element as well because it definitely helps bring variety to the show.”

Tawny Owl explained that although he performs written content rather than relying on improv, audience involvement can make every comedy night feel different, and he is intrigued by how different cities will respond to his work.

“There’s a few cities I haven’t been to before, and Exeter is one of them. Even picking the 25 venues was an interesting experience, and Exeter had a few things going for it. Having university was one, as my stuff works for students quite well, and the Phoenix is also a really beautiful space.

“Also, Spencer Jones, who is based in Exeter and is definitely a big influence for me, ran the Exeter Comedy Festival in June, so I thought there would be an appetite for comedy and for something a bit different. 

“I think the big thing for me is that I want to connect to local audiences and real people. Although my stuff is alternative and quite different, I’m always writing it in a way that's close enough so that anyone can get something out of it and enjoy it.

“Ultimately, over the next 5 years I want to do five UK tours every autumn and build my own audience, so I’m not relying on promoters or gatekeepers. I’m really just trying to go grassroots, which feels quite rare in comedy, but coming from a music background, there’s a lot of indie bands that go that route and have been successful in it, so I’m excited to see what happens. It’s very much a big risk, big reward sort of thing.”

Though Andy still works on acoustic covers and also does some wedding performances, his main occupation is orchestrating music for films and television.

He has worked with composers on shows like BBC’s The Capture and ITV’s Red Eye, advising them on how to transform their music into sheet music and assisting with conducting orchestras recorded in London.

“Obviously, it's less performance-based and more behind the scenes working on laptops. My main performance out there at the moment is comedy. It’s nice to have that balance, and I’ve been really enjoying exploring different art forms, and that’s why comedy has been so much fun.”

The performance will take place on Monday, October 7, 7:30pm to 10pm.

Tickets are £8 and can be purchased on the Phoenix Theatre website.