Where sex is a...tube of toothpaste

Gareth Berliner tells Sunil Peck about the new show from Abnormally Funny People

I meet Gareth Berliner on the second day of rehearsals for the new Abnormally Funny People show. The performers have just seven more days to write and rehearse a show which is due to begin its short run at the end of January. Nevertheless, Berliner is not daunted. In fact, he finds the prospect of coming up with new material from scratch “an exciting” one and insists that the audience will be in for a very different comedy experience.

“We are still developing it. But previously one of us would stand up and take turns to do a set. But the new show will be more cohesive. We are working on improvisation, and we will be laughing at each other and with the audience during the show a lot more.”

One idea they have been trying out is a sketch known as “guru and idiot”. Berliner plays the role of an idiot. He has been trying to learn what sex is by asking the guru a series of probing questions in an increasingly surreal exchange. “It is a double act thing, like Laurel and Hardy, where one of us seems to know everything and the other one does not.”

The sketch climaxes with Berliner turning to the audience to tell them that he has learned that sex is a tube of toothpaste.

Berliner has performed previously with Abnormally Funny People at the Edinburgh Festival, but the latest incarnation of the show boasts a brand new line-up. In fact, the cast are still getting to know each other. But Berliner says that everything is going “brilliantly” and the performers are gelling quickly.

His forte is stand-up comedy, but he has picked up a lot from working with Paul Betney, Liam O’Carroll, Caroline Parker and Juliette Cowan (the token non-disabled performer). “They are much better actors than I am.”

Berliner has no doubts that they will succeed in pulling it off. “I would be scared if I felt that we were not going to be offering anything different, but I am confident that we will be able to put on a fuller show.”

He goes on to say that it is a help that the group are strangers because “it allows us to be much more spontaneous. We are already bouncing loads of ideas off each other.”

Unless Abnormally Funny People can secure more funding, the show will not be able to travel to the Edinburgh Festival again this year. So Berliner would love to see a generous benefactor step in to help them out. But ultimately he would love to tour the country with Abnormally Funny People so that audiences outside London and Edinburgh will have the chance to see the show.

• Soho Theatre, London, tel: 0870 4296883, www.abnormallyfunnypeople.com

23-26, 30-31 Jan; 1-2 Feb 2008, 8pm, £12/£10