Prioritë  Gauche are literally 'dans la maison' - they are in the home. They have already created a sensation on the Parisian music scene. Performing in Edinburgh on the final leg of their British tour, during which they have appeared all around the country, and have taken in glamorous locations like Sheffield, Plymouth, Ipswich (where Didier 'accidentally' got married) and Birmingham. Most importantly, they are 'fou pour ce' - mad for it. In the guise of Jean-Francois and Didier, Ben and Arn took this year's Edinburgh Fringe by storm, performing to sell-out crowds every night. Along with Dave Gorman and Autoboosh, to keep up with the high demand for tickets, Priorite  Gauche had to add extra dates to their Edinburgh schedule. Comedy Lounge caught up with Arnold and Ben in London as they recovered from their fringe success.
Sitting in The George in Hammersmith, Arnold immediately grabs hold of the tape recorder and begins to mess about with the speed setting. "I'm going to make you sound gay by speeding up the tape," he declares. "You see the problem with you," he explains to Ben, "is that you don't have a really masculine deep voice like I have." "When we were in the technicians at the Soho Theatre" counters Ben, who is playing with a conker he found today, "they said your voice is really hard to put on microphone. There's something about it." And on it goes.
Ben Willbond and Arnold Widdowson met in Oxford University, where they were both studying French literature. "And Russian" says Ben, dragging the tape recorder towards him. " I studied Russian, can I just say." At the end of their final year, they were part of a group that brought a show to Edinburgh Fringe in 1995. "It was an Oxford review," says Arn. "Oxford reviews being like the Cambridge Footlights, but less famous." "But much better" points out Ben. "By student review standards it was a very good show, and it gave us a false sense of what it was all about. It was the best selling show in that venue, and we thought 'well, I imagine we should come to London and when I come to London I will become a professional comedian and that's what I shall do'. And that's exactly what happened. Six years later."
As a four piece sketch group, they moved to London, but the quartet soon split up, and it took Ben and Arn another two years to settle down and decide to be a double act, as Arn explains. "I think basically we left university and we know that we were sort of generally good at comedy. but we didn't really know what to do with it. Going to London with so many venues and gigs and you've got 5 or 10 minute things. We just sort of do sketches. And no one was interested." At that time, there wasn't much call for sketch based comedy, and so they set up their own club in Clapham in 1998, performing one night a week between October and March of 1999. On the basis of the material they had built up in that time, they brought 'Ben And Arn's Big Top' to Edinburgh 1999.
That show consisted of Ben and Arn appearing in the role of the presenters of the show, and segue-wayed into loose sketches and routines, rather than the traditional structure of lights fading up and down to separate the sketches. They appeared later than most of the other comedy shows, which was a strategic decision, as Ben explains. "I think we all agreed we wanted a later slot, because it was a late night feel show, and it wasn't a sketch show. It was an entertaining show from 11 to 12 and it only cost five quid. And so what we used to get to begin with was people hanging around the courtyard in the Pleasance. They didn't get into the Avalon shows, they didn't get into the popular shows, and we'd go around flyering going, come and see our show."
Their perseverance of course earned them the Perrier Award for Best Newcomers. "The actual moment of winning the Perrier was pretty good," says Ben. But what did winning the Perrier actually mean to them? "Winning the Perrier means that people who you are working with want to further your career as much as you want to further your own career, and so it flows more easily," says Arn. "And you feel like one of the big boys, well, not one of the big boys, but you're more of a professional comedian and the show is being done as a proper show, not as some kind of cultish little dive."
Appearing alongside Ben and Arn in that show was Bernard, who sat at the back of the stage, throwing comments out during the performance, and sometimes wowing the crowds with his musical repertoire. So where has Bernard disappeared? "He's in statis," says Ben. "We've cryogenically frozen him," explains Arn, "because he reached a comedic peak and we thought he can't possibly go any higher than this, let's freeze him until we need him again. We'll defrost him." Actually, Bernard is still involved in this year's show, helping out on the music side, and Ben and Arn do not rule out working with him again in the future. "Basically we had to decide whether we went with another show with Bernard, or whether we went with a show as the French rappers, which he was never involved in. And we decided to go with the rappers."
As the two French rappers played a small part in the 1999 show, going solo with them for an hour long show was a brave decision that certainly paid off. "I'm still very very proud that we did something a little bit unexpected," says Arn. "I don't think anyone was expecting us to come back with a full length show of a 10 minutes slot of the show we did before."
The Prioritë Â Gauche show is a superb mix of musical and character comedy. Jean-Francois and Didier perform a rapid succession of songs, interspersed with audience interaction and banter. Like most French people, Didier can speak English - "but only when he wants to." Jean-Francois therefore acts as translater, and is subsequently put in to some awkward positions when Didier attempts some unique seduction techniques on certain members of the audience. The music, although a prominent part of the show, is not an overwhelming aspect, and this plays an important part in the success of the show. The two performers are obviously very comfortable within their characters, and the show explores their relationship as much as it does the difference between English and French culture.
The show keeps a consistently high standard of comedy, without ever once resorting to 'funny foreigner' parodies to fill in the hour. "It's not about we're British pretending to be French, let's take the piss out of French people," says Arn. "We are genuinely purporting to be French, a lot of people think we are, and it's about the relationship between the two countries, not about aren't French people funny because they eat frogs legs, which is frankly not particularly original." As the show progresses, the atmosphere becomes increasingly relaxed as the audience comes alongside the performers, and overall the show can feel like an intimate gig regardless of the size of the venue. Both Ben and Arn cite the acoustic section of the show as their favourite part of the show, as Ben explains. "When Arn's on the guitar and I'm singing that's a lovely feeling because it's very loose."
Despite receiving good reviews from papers varying from The Sun to the Guardian, the show has been interpreted in many different ways. A reviewer from the Independent during the festival termed it 'anti-deluviant'. "It means before the flood, apparently," says Ben. "That's what Chris Addison said. He was about the twentieth person I asked, before I actually found out what it meant." They have many theories on the mixed reaction their show has received. "Britain is an island, this kind of mentality," says Arn. "The French are much more multi-national, because they live on the continent. they've got everybody bordering them pretty much, so they've got a much more open mind about other cultures and they learn languages more easily, so they appreciate things more. So British people - I don't want to generalise too much - they think it's hilarious because they say 'oh yes, cos I remember when I was at school, and it's true that the French do this and the French do that'. The French will see the show and say 'oh that's really interesting, because I understand what you're doing more because I see that you're seeing it from a French perspective and an English perspective'. You can sum it up by people saying if you don't understand French, you won't find it funny. Well, why?"
The show has attracted people of all ages - "we had people from age 10 to about 80. And," says Ben proudly, "I've had letters from people saying." Arn immediately interrupts. "Sorry, can I stop you - a letter." "Oh, a letter. I've had a letter from this elderly couple who had come, and it said 'I'm sorry for writing this in long hand, but it's much easier for us, and our combined age is 162.'" "A couple," continues Arn. "Combined age 162. She was 22, he was 140. Probably just a 25 year old man, who just wanted to write a letter. He was a schizophrenic who wanted to be an old couple. But still. He humoured us, and we liked it." The point, of course, is that their show attracts a much broader audience than the usual character- or sketch- based comedy shows. The Perrier stamp of approval will undoubtedly have helped, but, as Arn points out, "we had to make sure the show was good."
So life is looking good for the pair. "Originally we lived week to week, but now we live month to month, and perhaps year to year. Because we've planned our next year already, really. We're off to Australia and then we've got Edinburgh. And that's nice to know you've got the year pretty much sorted out so you can plan other stuff around it." In a profession that is notoriously difficult to keep your head above water, they both say they have never regretted their decision to move full time into pursuing a career in comedy. "I feel that this is something I've got something to offer the industry," says Arn, "and I will never be happy unless I find out whether I could have done it or not. If I did another job knowing that I could have done something I'd just be unhappy. The money is only a problem in as much as it's annoying to have to think about where your next rent cheque is coming from."
As to the future, they are keeping tight lipped as to their immediate plans. "Top secret, I think," says Arn. "The two French lads will hit the airwaves in some form or other in the next twelve months, but not sure what, how or who with. It's a digital thing. Something will happen, yeah."
"It's completely unpredictable," says Ben. "I might
become a sheep farmer when we go to Australia, I don't
know."
"It's not going to happen," replies Arn.
"I might do. I might become a beach bum."
