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Toby Trees

@tobytrees

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Strolls on the coast in North Berwick. taken in North Berwick by @tobytrees

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4 days ago

the wonderful @alexisfawxlive joined us for @thatplaneshow during Edinburgh Fringe to see if that Air Force experience would help to get a Boeing 737 on the ground. One of the kindest and funnest guests we’ve had on #edinburghfringe #aviation #flightsimulator #edinburgh #alexisfawx taken in Edinburgh, United Kingdom by @tobytrees

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a month ago

Faces of the Fringe: Max Fulham

My parents bought me a puppet for Christmas when I was about nine years old and it’s sort of gone from there really. We started out doing kids’ shows because I was still a kid, and then I took a gap year and ended up going full-time and cancelling my place at uni, which was not what I expected to do. From the age of four to 11 I lived just outside Edinburgh, so I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for the Fringe. I’d watch shows at the Fringe as a kid. So I sort of have the Fringe to blame for what I do, really. Last year was my debut, so this is year two. This is the difficult sequel year. I was very nervous because last year I put everything into the show and got to September and was like, I don’t have anything to do. How am I going to create a whole other show? There’s no way I’m going to be able to do that. But we did it. And here we are now. The biggest fear is people wouldn’t like the show, the jokes wouldn’t work and it wouldn’t be funny. It’ll be shit. That people won’t laugh, really. That’s the only reason I’m doing it. This has always been what I’ve wanted to do. Occasionally you go, oh, I’d love a job that I could forget about at the end of a working day, or a job that has weekends. I’m very bad at taking time off because an inquiry comes in and you go, well, I am technically free, so I probably should say yes to that. But I’m such a comedy nerd. There’s so much comedy to see here, I’m in my element. It’s proof that you can create anything. You can literally create anything. I watched everything at the Fringe as a kid. It’s the place where the passion started for me. So to come back here with my own thing reconnects me to why I do this. I’d love more people to see this show. I think I’ve created something good here, so I’d love for it to have a life beyond the Fringe in some way. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I’m very bad at goal setting. People have a five-year plan or whatever. That’s not my style. As long as I am making people laugh in bigger and better ways, then that is sort of it for me.

PS @markgorman is a lovely man. Thank you, Mark Gorman. Just in case he sees this. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Dan Boerman

I signed up for my first open mic in 2012. At the time I was living two hours from the venue and just smoking weed every night. I ended up forgetting that I had the gig booked. There were nine and a half years between signing up for my first gig and doing my first gig. Every few years I had this realisation where I was going to do comedy, and then never did. Then my dad died six years back. I often think that my first stand-up gig was his eulogy. My brother did a speech, it was real good, it was real sad. Then I went up and made everyone laugh and I was like, oh yeah, this is cool. I think from a real young age I was like, what can you change? What can’t you change? Stuff you can’t change, you can laugh about it, and then you get to enjoy everything. My first mic was five years ago. I bombed. The idea for this show happened while I was on a flight. I have an “ideas car park” on my phone where you can write stuff down and you do not need to do the things on this list. First note: show where comedians learn to fly a plane. Then straight from there, the last eight months is all I’ve been doing. I was on the flight Wi-Fi shopping for appliances. What’s the minimum that I need? How little can you get away with? When I ran the first show, it was garbage. I did 45 minutes of stand-up to a silent room. People walked out. Then the flight at the end fucking killed it. David Correos said, “Dude, you’re sitting on a really good show, but you need to just kill the stand-up.” Five years earlier he’d seen me bomb my first gig. Half a decade later, I felt so hurt and humiliated that this dude who’s my comedy idol had seen me still suck. I wanted to quit that night. Then I had a burrito and I felt way better. Every night the guy at the burrito spot would see me get gradually happier throughout the week as the show improved. Now the show is just based off his advice. My favourite part of the Fringe is everyone from everywhere. If you’re going to share something with the world, it needs to be something that you’re proud of. If the stakes are high, then it makes you work harder at what you love to do. And the money. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Ollie Horn

I first came to the Fringe in 2015. I’d heard about it loads on podcasts and I slept on a friend’s kitchen floor on a Lilo and tried to get spots. I did my 45-minute show in 2018 and it’s continued to grow since, but the growth hasn’t been linear. It’s not like every year it’s got bigger and bigger. Everyone is good at sharing their successes, and that can give you a warped perception of how well everyone’s doing. I think what’s hard is remembering why you came and what success means to you. It’s very easy to look at other people and go, I want what they’re having, or I wish I was selling their number of tickets. Particularly as a new act, you want everything all at once and it’s very hard not to get a sense that everyone’s doing way, way, way better than you. They’re not. They’re just not. I try not to think too ambitiously too often because I think that can make you forget that what you’ve got is already brilliant. If all of this was in order to get on Live at the Apollo, I think I’d be quite sad. I say this to my friends at the Fringe all the time: we were literally dreaming of this. A friend got offered £50 to do a spot and went, “I’m not sure.” You have to check yourself and go, 10 years ago, you were sending emails to this person and they were ignoring you. Now they’re coming to you and offering you money to do something you once dreamed of being able to do.
We’ve got to make sure that we remember we are quite literally living our dream. Ten years ago, I was in a coffee shop at the Fringe with a friend who was already established in comedy. The barista recognised him and said, “I’m a big fan. I loved your show.” I remember thinking, that’s so cool. To be walking around town not knowing whether someone you meet has watched your show and loved it. A bunch of people have a little secret about you, and that secret is they love your work. I remember thinking, God, I’d love that to happen one day. Yesterday I was walking with my agent and someone came up and went, “Oh, Ollie.” She asked if that happens very often. I’d sort of forgotten about that memory until this guy said he loved the show. Now it’s happened. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Madeleine Lemay

I did Hollywood Fringe three years ago, and this is my first Edinburgh Fringe, so I’m excited. I started doing stand-up two and a half years ago, but I grew up doing improv, so it felt very natural. From the beginning I was like, oh, it’s so boring, just talking. So I started doing character stuff and then prop comedy. About a year and a half ago, I was asked to make a slideshow presentation for a show, and that unlocked something in me. I was like, it is so funny to build a slideshow and make that your set. When I was building my Fringe show, I knew I wanted it to be like that. I’m also into editing, so my show has fake commercials and two different slideshows. I’m trying to make my show authentically me. It’s telling stories about my life, but I’m a very visual person. I hope people take away that stand-up doesn’t have to just be stand-up. I did a show where there were five people in the audience. It was an Armenian family and the grandma did not speak English. The only thing I had prepared was a slideshow about High School Musical. Two minutes in, I was like, this ain’t working. So I took the mic, sat next to them and was like, all right, tell me, what’s the plan for after this? I’m not going to do this. Let’s just chat. I kind of like that because it keeps me on my toes. I could think my thing’s really funny, but if people do not rock with it, then it’s like, all right, I guess we gotta pivot. I teach theatre in primary schools as well as high schools. I joke with my comedian friends because I’ll be out at the Comedy Store, 30 or 40 people come say hi to me, people know me. Then the next day I go teach a classroom full of children. They’ll blow their nose on me and cough on my face. To one group of people, I’m cool. To 500 children in LA, I’m just their weird teacher. I think that helps me keep balance. Most of my friends just like making things. You meet people and they’re like, yes, where do you want me? I’ll do it. People just want to play and make. To me, it’s not about being famous or successful. It’s about just doing it. It’s fun making things and seeing the journey. Just to see that evolution is cool. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Carl Carzana

I’ve been up pretty much every year for five years, but this is my first one. I’ve just done spots before, so this is the first time committing to it. I didn’t really like the idea that you had to do it. People telling me, “You’ve got to do it,” is kind of the best way for me not to do something. About six months ago I did a gig for somebody who’s usually very critical of me. It went so well they didn’t have any notes. They said, “I would have put you on to open, but you were a difficult act to follow.” I was like, wow, where should I go on the line-up if no one can follow me? Can I headline? “No, absolutely not.” It made me realise the only thing I can do is hopefully get people to take what I’m doing more seriously, or show that I’m committed. So out of frustration, I was like, I’ll do it then. I think there was also a time where I was waiting to hear back about different opportunities. One felt like it was in the bag, then it came back and it wasn’t. That taught me I was done with asking to be part of somebody else’s thing. Just stop asking to be part of somebody else’s gang. Make your own thing. I’ve always felt there’s a creative way around things that are annoying you. I wanted to win a competition, but nobody was letting me, so I did my own. When I got into stand-up, it felt like all the weirdos and outsiders in society being like, look at me, and being the version of themselves they want to be for ten minutes. I’m quite a shy, introverted person normally, but I go on stage and I’m in persona. It’s like you click a switch to be silly. When I was a kid, I was really energetic and too much for people. I was told not to be like that, so you kind of feel like that’s not correct or that’s naughty. Then when you’re on stage, the more you do that, the more people like it. They encourage you. I just have permission to be weird. Comedy, for me, is good because it could be an umbrella for all the things you want to try. I’ve made a bunch of puppets because I watched the Jim Henson documentary and thought, I’d like to make a puppet. You can put anything into comedy as long as you make it funny. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Justina Seleskaitė

I’ve been doing comedy for five years and I’ve gone to the Fringe one way or another, each summer, August, but this is my first solo show. So it’s the first time I’m doing something by myself, all alone, with no one else’s help. It’s very stressful, but also rewarding at the same time. Last year I did something called Best in Class, which is a working-class comedian showcase. You apply, they pick eight working-class comedians, and you get to come up to the Fringe and do pretty much sellout shows every day. It’s really cool. Working-class acts struggle a bit to come here because it’s so expensive. But that was a great opportunity to do it and now I have the confidence to do my own show. Really, these are jokes from the last five years, kind of. There are a few jokes that are specifically for this show, but mostly it’s just my stand-up. I got a 4.5-star review, so that’s validating for myself, but also like, at least, if nothing else happens for the rest of the Fringe, I’ve got something to show for all this time and work. Of course we’re stressed. There are so many shows and not an infinite amount of people. Some of these shows are just going to come up empty, or have two or three people in the audience. Even though it’s going to be easy someday, it still hurts. But you’ve still got to do the best show you can for the people who are there and hopefully the momentum is going to build up. When you spend so much money, I could be on three holidays right now. I could be in Japan, for how much money I’ve spent being here. So I have to come here and work. It’s very rewarding, but if it doesn’t go even a little bit the way you hope, you do feel like you’ve wasted a lot of time and money. But it’s worth it. At the end of the day, you don’t have to be here. You choose to be here, so if you’re here, you have to take every advantage you can get. You’ve got to just keep plugging along. People will come. They’ll figure it out. It’s just patience and persistence. It’s great to think I could be someone’s first Fringe show. Someone came to the city, went to my show straight after having a meal, and they loved it. That feels pretty nice. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Ivy Favier

I lived in Edinburgh for nine years as a kid. I used to go to Fringe shows all the time, the kids’ Fringe shows and puppet shows and stuff. I loved it. So it’s kind of a full circle moment to now be here performing at the Fringe. I never would have imagined. My show is about me. It’s about my love life. It’s about five years of my love life. I started at the first crush I had when I was 13, and went from there up to the present. When I was writing it, I was still in a complicated, toxic polyamorous relationship that was not going well for me. I was writing my show while in that and being like, I wonder by the time I finish writing it, will something have changed? The end of the show is the end of that relationship. That relationship ended, I wrote about it, and I was like, actually, that’s the end of the show. There were nine different women that I was involved with, and I realised that my first girlfriend had a lot of similarities to the final breakup. There was something cyclical about it. A big pattern. I realised that I was following my own pattern, and I need to break that pattern in order for something to change. I have a scarcity mentality. Living in Cork, there’s not a lot of options for queer women that I can date. So my pool is small, and I think I accept a lot for myself. My bar is set quite low. In the show, the end statement I make is that I want to draw the line. I want to try and raise my own bar and my own standards of what I will accept for myself. I always say, “I understand” at the end of a rejection. But my “I understand” gets progressively less understanding until the end, where it’s genuinely a little hostile. If you’re a people pleaser, you definitely want to be understanding and make the other person feel comfortable. But at the end of the day, if someone is breaking up with you or rejecting you or hurting you, it’s not your job to make them feel better about hurting you. That’s what I’ve been learning slowly: it’s not my job to make other people feel comfortable, especially when they’ve made me feel uncomfortable. And voicing that I feel uncomfortable is important. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Rachel Isobel Heritage

This would technically be my third Fringe. I was here in 2021 with a solo show, and last year I directed a show. I didn’t think I was nervous coming here, and then suddenly I was like, oh shit, I’m terrified. I think that’s because the play itself is really, really personal. It’s based on my real life, my healing journey over the last year and my experience as a late-discovered neurodivergent with CPTSD and is working class within the arts. My default understanding has always been that I will be misunderstood. You go about life having that as a core belief, but part of my healing is learning that I have these core beliefs and they may not always be true.
Trauma healing talks about how you have patterns that were there to protect you when you were young, but they might not always be the most helpful things. My character, Joanne, repeats certain patterns and puts herself in certain situations because that’s what feels familiar. Then she realises that what she’s been chasing isn’t something she’s going to achieve, because she’s really just chasing that kind of love that she was never really given. But she can find that for herself. That’s the journey I’ve been on for the past year. I spent years hustling like a motherfucker. At drama school I was working four nights a week because I had to pay to be there. Then I hit the industry desperately, going to almost every workshop, throwing shit at loads of different walls and nothing landing. Over the past year I’ve been learning: life is short, but life is long. You don’t need every achievement and piece of validation right now. Stop trying to seek validation from an industry that doesn’t necessarily accept you. That validation does not create your self-worth. It’s really about choosing yourself. I think that is the lesson you need to learn: choose yourself and choose the artist. You’re not a product, you’re not a puppet. You are a voice. That voice matters. You’re not empty, and that’s what finding your voice is. If I want art and stories to set me free, then that first story has to be about me. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Levi Child

I am a complete contradiction to myself. I’m really organised, then I’m also really messy at the same time. I love having structure in my life. I literally need structure in order to flourish because if I don’t have set rules and structure, I completely lose the plot. But at the same time, I need to be able to colour outside of the lines to make my brain work properly. I kind of need that stretch to access all of my tools and work creatively. I wrote Feral Daydreams last year, at a time where I was really unsure about myself, my life and what was going on. It started as a love letter to my life, to make me love it again. Then I realised it was all about my friends and the community that I’d made. Since starting it, that’s only increased. The show has made me meet people that I wouldn’t normally meet. It’s evolved so much because the reasons as to why I do it are constantly expanding. I decided to bring it to the Fringe because I enjoyed it so much. So I’ve just put all of my life savings, my life’s work, into doing this. With no backup plan and soon to be no job. It’s really impulsive. Even though I’m a really impulsive person, this is why I’m a complete contradiction. I’ve actually been at my job for like five years. If I find something that I really like, I will stick to it. But then, on a rash decision, I was like, I’m going to follow my dreams and see where it takes me. I’m worried that nobody will come. I’m being really vulnerable and raw. I’m scared that I’m going to get there and nobody’ll be there. But I’m so passionate about doing it, and it’s why I was so willing to give everything up to focus on it, because I wrote this at a time when I needed it. People have come up to me afterwards and said, “I really connected with me.” And that’s when I thought, this is the thing that I want to do. My dream is to create things. I love creating, making things that I am excited about, that I can share with people. I want to find a way to make what I do more interactive, in a way where people feel like they can take more from it. I want to tell even more relatable stories that apply to different lives. I think that’s my next project. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago

Faces of the Fringe: Jacob Hatton

It’s hard this year for a few reasons. Like, there’s material reasons and non-material reasons. The material ones are really basic. I’m doing 2 shows, a show on my own, and then I’m doing a show called Bin Fire, which is later in the evening and a compilation show and both style shows are always quite hard to sell, there have been times where it’s been a real struggle to get people in. The other reason is that I’m doing a nakedly, nakedly personal show. It’s almost like a fringe stereotype that you do a dead dad show. So this is mine. And then also I got divorced. So it’s kind of a twofer. What I would say is that it’s been a really interesting doing it. There’s a lot that I wanted to get out of it. And I think I’m going to get stuff out, but it’s not what I planned for going in, which is really interesting. When I’m performing and I get a good audience in, we generate this kind of insane collective catharsis. And people are coming up at the end of the show telling me just how much they related to what I was talking about and like, especially people who themselves are grieving someone they’ve had a really quite complicated relationship with, in my case, I openly didn’t really like my dad, that’s incredible. That’s fucking incredible. I’ve never experienced that before, ever. Like, people have been coming up to me after the shows and they want to hug me - that’s mad. And they want to sit but I‘ve got Bin Fire afterwards so I can’t but, like, they want to talk to me about their own experiences with grief and big break-ups and all the rest and that’s really cool. But then the shows where I have a low number of people, I’m basically just like bleeding out in front of a few people who are hoping it’s not too awkward for them. But that makes it, so I think I’ll definitely develop as a performer but not in the way I planned for. And I don’t think I’ll get catharsis out of this, but not in the way that I planned there to be either. But that’s also Fringe. I’m very good at visibly keeping it together. But that’s not necessarily like what’s actually true. Like, I’m kind of not. I crash out quite a bit, but I keep it to myself. taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @tobytrees

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2 months ago