Characters in comedy night at the museum

TWO years ago, Lorna-Rose Treen won the best joke award at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

Her winning waft of wit was: “I started dating a zookeeper… but it turned out he was a cheetah.”

Now she is on the bill at Henley’s latest Honk! comedy night later this month, which will be held at the River & Rowing Museum for the first time instead of The Relais hotel.

The 30-year-old character comedian can recall visiting Henley once before as a child.

“I remember it being really beautiful,” she says. “I remember the bridge and I think I’ve seen the River & Rowing Museum and I’ve definitely seen Greys Court.

“I’m really looking forward to going back as an adult.”

Lorna-Rose lives in London but grew up in Redditch, a town in Worcestershire.

She studied for a master’s in philosophy at Edinburgh University before moving to France to study the art of clowning under Philippe Gaulier.

This has helped her with some balletic performances as one of her characters, a femme fatale.

“I’m a character comedian so I play other people and I do all sorts,” she says. “There’s a lot of prop gags as well.

“I’ve done a film noir actress who is endlessly chain-smoking cigarettes and she pulls them from all sorts of places.

“One of my big characters is a brownie girl guide, who is like a child psychopath. I also do a lot of parody stuff. What I tend to do is really silly and surreal, a lot of one-liners. The fun thing about doing character comedy is you can do quite cutting satire, observational comedy, puns, all coming out of this character’s mouth.

“It’s quite freeing in a way and it’s nearly always very cartoony and
stupid.”

Prior to her comedy career, Lorna-Rose worked as a radio producer on shows including BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, which influenced her work.

She says: “I’ve got a radio show called Time of the Week, which is a parody of Woman’s Hour.

“Sian Clifford is our host, our news anchor, and she’s so funny. It goes out live on BBC Radio 4 and is also on BBC Sounds perpetually.”

Lorna-Rose co-wrote the series with her partner, Jonathan Oldfield, whom she met at university.

“I do a lot of writing with him,” she says. “The first series is out and we’re working on the second. We’re in the writers’ room now.”

Her heroes of comedy include Rik Mayall, Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge, Victoria Wood and Caroline Aherne.

“Morwenna Banks is amazing too,” says Lorna-Rose. “Actually, I got to do a gig by the producer of Absolutely.

“They did a pilot for Radio 4 in Glasgow last year and it was all character comedians on the bill. That felt really special.

“I also love Morgana Robinson, who’s a huge influence. She’s
amazing. Catherine Tate as well. Growing up, we all used to quote her in the playground. She was so naughty, I remember thinking ‘We can’t say that’. I loved her character Lauren.

“I loved The Fast Show, all that stuff, and I also really loved Ab Fab, which was so funny.

“I spent a lot of time when I was younger imitating Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French in their various sketches but particularly Eddie in Ab Fab, who I loved so much.

“When I first started doing comedy Rik Mayall in The Young Ones was the person that I would spend most of my time imitating.

“He had a protest sketch about dropping bombs, which was so funny. He was brilliant.

“I’ve been rewatching The Fast Show on iPlayer and it stands up so well because it’s so silly.

“All those things, like The Vicar of Dibley and Blackadder, I remember watching as a kid and think these characters were timeless.

“I know the characters are in a specific context but they could be anywhere or anyone and in a way that’s as relatable as somebody talking about your own experience on telly.”

Lorna-Rose will be joined in Henley by fellow comics Jordan Brookes, Fergus Craig, Frankie Thompson, Runi Talwar and Lorra Lidev.

“It’s a mixed bill and it’s such a cool and weird selection of people,” she says. “I think it will be really nice and whimsical. I’m really looking forward to it. Frankie is so funny, I love her a lot. She’s my contemporary — I think she did her first show the year before me and we are quite close collaborators.

“Like me, she’s in this world of comedy that’s quite male-dominated. She’s also a weirdo as well, so it’s quite nice seeking solace in her.

“I’m excited to meet Fergus Craig. He is a few generations above us but so funny, I’m a big fan.

“He is a character comedian as well. There are so few of us out there and it’s nice to have two of us on the bill.

“I’ve worked with Jordan Brookes quite a lot. He’s super-funny and really weird.

“As we move into an era of ChatGPT and AI, I think it’s so important that live art survives, which is something Frankie Thompson is really big on.

“Being in a room with other people and making them laugh, that’s so magical and a really human experience.

“I think that one of the nice things about this gig is that it’s putting comedy in another art space.

“That’s just so good for variation in art and in comedy and it’s so cool to push all of these arts together and unify them. It’s exciting and I’m really looking forward to it.”

• Honk! Comedy Night at the Museum is at the River & Rowing Museum in Mill Meadows on Saturday, March 22. Doors open at 7pm for an 8pm start. Tickets cost from £14.25. Fire and Hop will be preparing wood-fired, sourdough pizza (order with your ticket and choose one of four options on the night). For more information, visit linktr.ee/honkhot