ABSTRACT
In August 2010 a little-known comedy magic duo were spotted by an enthusiastic BBC TV producer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Within months the duo were hosting a BBC 1 prime-time show and within a year had sold out a national tour. The story is a familiar one at the Edinburgh Fringe, where scores of comedians are ‘discovered’ every year by talent scouts and launched into lucrative and high-profile careers. Although such breakthroughs are invariably constructed as the romantic triumph of raw talent, the reality is more calculated. As the magician's agent, Kerry, 1 explained to me, the duo's ‘discovery’ had been carefully orchestrated. She had spotted the pair a few years earlier and immediately saw that their brand of comedy magic could fill a conspicuous gap in the market. Earmarking the Fringe as the obvious launch pad, she embarked on a three-year plan. In 2008 the duo played a tiny 60-seater festival venue and, after a string of good reviews, started to sell out. The following August they moved to a 120-seater theatre and sold out the whole run. And in 2010 they moved to an even bigger venue, sold out again, and were duly ‘discovered’ by a television comedy scout. Kerry summed up the strategy:
There were TV execs that I could have pitched till I was blue-in-the-face in London. But if they turn up in Edinburgh and a show's been selling out for three weeks, you generate the interest anyway. I hate telling that story because it makes it sound contrived. But it is.
