Energy drinks: the canned caffeine creeping into our children's lives

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Energy drinks: the canned caffeine creeping into our children's lives

From the playgrounds to students studying late into the night and partying early into the morning hours. Joshua Saunders investigates how energy drinks are not only stealing our kids's sleep but could be putting their lives at risk.

A gaggle of five school children, no older than eleven, stand at the side of a compact cornershop, metres away from Pimlico tube station. They’re discussing which drink to buy, admiring the rack of sugared beverages before them. “This one’s the cheapest,” says a freckled blond haired boy, pointing to an energy drink.

His friends consider the recommendation, glancing over the endless array of fizzy caffeinated beverages before them. All but two of them purchase the home brand energy drink available at their fingertips for 39 pence.

At the time I was a spectator watching as the shopkeeper scans the cans that bear the warning ‘not recommended for children’. Unaware or disinterested he waives their age aside and sells drinks they were not intended to consume.

Several days previously to this, in November last year, the parents of young Anais Fournier lost a lawsuit of ‘wrongful death’ against energy drink corporation Monster. Anais, who was only 14 at the time, had consumed two 24-ounce cans of Monster Mega Energy. She suffered cardiac arrest after taking in 480mg of caffeine, the equivalent to 14 cans of Coca Cola, which she had drank in just over 24 hours, which aggravated an underlying heart condition. Neither Anais or her parents were aware of this weakness that was caused by a genetic disorder.

The coroner concluded that “cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity complicating mitral valve regurgitation in the setting of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome” was responsible for her death. “Anything that weakens the heart can increase sensitivity to caffeine’s cardiovascular impacts,” commented cardiologist Rita Redberg.

This sensitivity to caffeine and a lack of knowledge about how caffeine affects younger people and their bodies is to blame for the sad story of young Anais. Her parents decided to switch off her life support machine after she had lay dormant in a medically induced coma for six days. This is not the only case of where a child has been hospitalised after consuming energy drinks.

The case shocked the world, casting doubt and uncertainty over the safety of energy drinks, leaving many of us, myself included, questioning: how many more children and teenagers could be at risk?

Despite this the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) documented in 2011, that we as a nation drank 495 million litres of energy drinks, the equivalent of 198 Olympic sized swimming pools.

The market leader is Red Bull, which is the third best selling soft drink in Britain selling more than 230 million cans last year.

“Red Bull gives you wings,” “Unleash the beast,” “Party like a Rockstar,” “Go Full Throttle or go home” are a few of the common slogans employed by energy drink advertisers to entice purchasers displaying the uplifting energized effect of what some refer to as ‘canned adrenaline’.

The BSDA, who represent the soft drinks industry, issued a code of practice to prevent people below the age of 16 from being targeted by advertising for energy drinks. But despite this, many large companies sponsor extreme sports, skateboarders, sportsmen and competitions that are predominantly watched and participated in by children and teenagers.

Mother Tina Brazier from Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham was concerned to find that Jacob, her son, had been consuming between five and six cans of energy drinks a day at their local skatepark. 

“Red Bull have their own sections on extreme sports channels and the majority of their audience is at the lower end of the teenage scale, who then aspire to be like them,” says Tina. “My nine year old’s obsessed with skateboarding programmes. So now he’s being drip fed by the same advertising.”

Jacob was 13 when he developed a series of bladder infections and at times was urinating blood. Doctors could not pin down after to a specific cause, even after numerous tests. “One evening he kept going to the toilet, and then he’d go to the toilet again he’d say, ‘it’s not fair my tummy’s hurting.'”

“It seemed that there was a direct correlation between the energy drinks he was having and the effects it was having on his bladder. It was irritating him a lot.”

A Canadian health report suggests that children aged 13 and under should not take any more than 2.5mg of caffeine per kg of body weight. The average weight for a 12-13 year old hovers around seven to eight stone, meaning the highest amount of caffeine children of that age should consume is 119 mg.

However in the average 500ml can of energy drinks Monster and Rockstar there is 160mg of caffeine, and the slightly denser 475ml can of Red Bull contains fractionally less.

“Jacob seems very hyper when he’s had them, speaking at twenty million miles per hour, unable to sit still and fidgeting,” Tina explained. “He now knows he can’t have them, but they are quite blinkered at that age and so doesn’t consider things.” Weeks earlier this innocent naivety was highlighted to Tina, when her nine-year-old son returned from the shop with a ‘ginormous can of monster’. “Three young children can go into a shop and freely buy energy drinks, with legislation they wouldn’t be able to do that,” she stressed.

Currently there is no legislation to prevent a child of any age from purchasing energy drinks. The only barrier between kids and energy drinks are the shopkeepers, whether they choose to sell to minors is at their own discretion. 

“You can buy them in the shops and drink as much as you can, which is where some of the health concerns come in,” says Dr Michael Duncan of Coventry University’s biomolecular and sport science department. He said: “energy drinks are packed up as a ready to go high caffeine solution,” not tailored to an individual’s own tolerance level.

One report, from the University of Miami’s paediatrics department suggests, “These drinks have been reported in association with serious adverse effects, especially in children, adolescents, and young adults with seizures, diabetes, cardiac abnormalities, mood and behavioral disorders or those who take certain medications.”

They warned that high-caffeine drinks could “exacerbate cardiac conditions” in children resulting in “hypertension, irregular heartbeats and even sudden death.”

We put our queries to three of the largest energy drinks companies. Neither Monster, Red Bull nor Relentless replied to our questions about the safety of their products towards teenagers and children. However in previous statements they have made the following comments: “Red Bull should be part of a balanced and varied diet as well as a healthy lifestyle.” Monster - “Our products are safe based on both our and the industry’s long track record and the scientific evidence supporting the safety of our ingredients.” No comment from Relentless could be found.

“The reality is they’re very accessible and popular and you see kids drinking energy drinks all the time,” says MP Robert Wilson. The Reading East representative is calling for clarity on whether they pose risk or danger to young consumers. “Without looking thoroughly at what ingredients like taurine do to the body from state-commissioned research, we’re effectively playing a game of Russian Roulette. It’s time we took this issue rather more seriously,” he added.

Across the pond in Canada there are now laws preventing any non-resealable energy drinks from containing more than 180mg of caffeine. But Huffington Post columnist Steven LaFleur opposes the newly implemented laws believing, “For the amount of resources required to implement this type of legislation you could run all kinds of public education or health efforts.”

As of December 2014, under EU law all energy drinks companies will be forced to disclose the caffeine content per 100ml on the front of their cans. Along with the current requirements stating ‘high caffeine content’ and ‘not recommended for children, or pregnant or breastfeeding women’.

But is this enough - will labelling effectively cull the younger generation’s thirst for caffeinated drinks? The answer I suspect is no. Similarly, if laws were passed banning shopkeepers from selling energy drinks to children it risks making them into another adolescent taboo. The only effective measure against children putting themselves in harm’s way is education. Although at a time where the wallets of the taxpayer are tighter than an anaconda’s grip, public outreach programmes could also be out of the question.

“If you have a mature and honest conversation with your children about the effects of caffeine and sugar, I think you have a better chance of influencing their behaviour than any broad [legislative] approach,” suggests Steven LaFleur. And perhaps responsibility should be returned to us, the sensible parents, family, neighbours and friends of caffeine consuming kids...

Experts allude to the fact that further research must be done, specifically into the ingredients taurine, guarana and other stimulants to unravel how truly safe energy drinks are. But until that definitive point they are still available in more than 140 countries worldwide and all that we can do is try to educate young people about safe and moderate caffeine consumption

Have your say by tweeting @altenergy or message @saundersjoshua

Dance teacher Lou Coel from Northampton, said:

“One girl I teach brought an energy drink to my lesson, she’s nine. At that age they shouldn’t be having them because they will be bouncing off the walls one minute, then sleeping and feeling depressed the next.”

Mumsnet member Becca Cobham from Lydney said:

“Kids that age are drinking them to get a buzz, and they are stimulants. You worry that they could found out about something stronger, like legal highs on the internet."

 

Student Ashley Humber, 19, from Christchurch said:

“I've gone through phases where I've polished off a six pack of Red Bull in a morning, in two hours. I've been there in cold sweats, really scatty and not unsure of where I am, everything feels different.”

 

Television production student Loti Bradley, 21, from Lincolnshire said:

"They made me feel more awake and stimulated so I could get on with work and improve my concentration but in the end I was relying on them rather than having them for enjoyment."

Click on the links below to find out more 

Pebble: Homeless for the Holidays

(Featured in Pebble Zine: Issue three)

Homeless for the Holidays

words by joshua saunders • illustration by lauren kelsey

James Beavis spent over a week living on the streets of London this Christmas, witnessing life from a section of the community that society turns away from on a daily basis. He told Joshua Saunders about his filmed experiences of being homeless over the merriest season of the year; a time over spilling with tinsel, turkey and supposed generosity, during one of the coldest winters of the past 100-years. 

“I am truly out there, I am truly on my own with nothing,” said an understandably anxious 22-year-old student, he’d announced on his first of six video diaries that he would be spending Christmas homeless on the streets of London, to raise money for homeless charity Crisis. 

“I won’t have planned where I’m staying. I’m taking no money with me, no card, so I’ll have to beg for food and water. If I can get anything I’ll be giving any excess to Crisis... and if I can’t get enough, I’ll be going hungry and thirsty. I’m having no phone with me, no contact with my friends or family, I think I’m going to find the hardest thing this Christmas is not speaking to my dad, my gran, my mum and family.”

He’d be spending nine days and eight nights experiencing homelessness first hand on the streets of Lewisham, one of London’s most deprived areas. He would be appealing to anybody watching his videos to donate or to share his initial video across Facebook and other social networking sites, and unbeknownst to him 1,384 people across the UK did. By the end of his time stint on the streets James accumulated just under 35,000 views from the YouTube videos that recorded his arduous endeavour. Beavis also managed to raise over £26,000 to help the homeless community seek refuge in Crisis centres dotted throughout the UK.

“It costs £20.48 for a place at Crisis centre and they were 150 beds short. Charitable giving has gone down by a fifth, it’s not that people won’t give it’s about finding a way to make people give,” said a healthier looking James Beavis, only a few days after returning back home. 

James Beavis was on recorded his experiences on the streets through
video diaries, documenting the troubles of being homeless at Christmas

“I always thought I was quite a big, strong person” he said, “but it made me realise how weak I am, I’ve never done something so difficult in my life. I did it for 8 nights and there’s a guy I met who has done it every day for 12 years, he’s been set on fire, stabbed. I realised I couldn’t do it for that long, I think I’d have given on up life.”

Trying to find work is a problem riddled task for people on the streets, as without an address it’s not possible to apply for a National Insurance card meaning they are unable to get a legal job and therefore run the risk of having to do things illegally.

In December 2003 begging was made a recordable offense, it is an illegal activity but does not carry a jail sentence. James vehemently opposes this legislation, he questions “Why can’t you beg for yourself if you’re in need of charity? We’re cutting off the lifeline for these people. We are failing them because we can’t give them benefits either because they don’t have an address.”

 

During his time on the streets James struggled to raise just under five pounds a day even in some of London’s high-footfall locations, including outside Tottenham Court Road train station, having been removed from inside by security. “I went an hour and a half without talking to people, there must have been 300 people walking past you a minute.

“People don’t just turn their eyes away from you, they turn their whole head 90 degrees so as not to look at you. So if you’re not in their world, not in their vision, you’re not a problem for society, then they don’t need to tackle this issue; and we call ourselves a developed country...”

Instead of begging, James would often find himself looking through bins for any remnants of food, including Christmas day, a time when no shops are open.

“Begging is the most dehumanising thing ever,” James says, “I literally survived on as little as possible. You look down to the ground while saying it, it’s really the most humiliating thing and I think I’d find it even harder if I knew I wasn’t doing it for charity,” he recalls.
In the first of his video diaries from the streets, which he spent the last of his money and missed a meal to upload in a nearby internet cafe, an exhausted and feverish James told viewers, “Last night was the hardest night of my life, four hours of worrying about being beaten up, bottled or knifed. It’s Christmas now, it’s about 4am in the morning and I’ve been kicked out of two stops, I’ve had my cardboard taken.”

While his friends and family were overindulging on roast turkey dinners, James was getting progressively more sodden from the heavy rainfall sweeping England on Christmas day, in the evening he continued to say, “It’s really, really cold. I didn’t get enough money begging today so tomorrow morning I’m going to have to route through bins and I’m really hungry now.”
He reflected, “The rain was pouring on my face, all my heat was sapping into the ground and it was so windy that my sleeping bag was filling up like a wind tunnel.

“There’s cold, it’s not like a sharp shooting cold it’s a numb, bone aching cold, you don’t feel cold in your skin you
feel cold in your bones. It’s your bones that are making your skin cold.”

“I was actually starting to think like a homeless person, it’s ‘outstitutionalised’, you start to think us versus them,” James explained that the isolation of being homeless, estranged from the help of the public, left him feeling out of the institution - ‘outstitutionalised’.”

This split in society was further highlighted when he was filming outside of the prestigious Savoy hotel and a taxi driving passed nudged into him.

“There’s cold, it’s not like a sharp shooting cold, it’s a numb, bone aching driving cold, you don’t feel cold in your skin you feel cold in your bones.”

 “Someone threw a vodka bottle at me, [if it hit me] it would have screwed me up. It was a dead on shot but smashed before it reached me. You get upset from people treating you like crap.” Wanton actions like that leave the homeless community feeling further alienated from society, deprived of basic human kindness leaving a lot of people with an ‘us versus them’ mentality.

A common misconception that fuels this segregation is the presumption that a lot of homeless people are drug and alcohol addicts.
James has worked at one of Crisis’s homeless shelters for just over a year, he asked people stopping there about this widely presumed fact, “The people who I spoke to, who are homeless, don’t drink that’s for sure because it lowers your blood temperature, you get yourself food, hot drinks, also partly because of what people think of you.

If people see a tramp drinking, it’s just another alcoholic beggar who made the wrong decisions in life and that it’s their fault that they’re there. Taking drugs is too expensive for most of the homeless people. Who can spend £40
or £50 on Class As when your budget for a week is less than £40?”

Touchingly, when people from the homeless centre found out about James’s campaign many offered him money, “I think that just showed that we’ve got a community who are so willing to give so much back and then the way we treat them is not nice.”

“Taking drugs is too expensive for most of the homeless people.
Who can spend £40 or £50 on Class As when your budget for a week is less than £40?”

Changing people’s perceptions is at the mantra of James’s campaigning, his stint on the streets stemmed from wanting to raise enough money so that Crisis homeless shelter wouldn’t have to turn people away at Christmas due to a shortage of beds.
Feeling compelled to make a difference for “a community no one was sticking up for”, his videos hastily revealed the harsh reality facing anyone without shelter over the festive period, during one of the UK’s coldest winters in
100-years. 

Government statistics in 2011 estimated that homelessness had risen by 14%, translating to 48,510 people living rough on the streets. The figure, deduced from the amount of applications for council assistance from homeless individuals, is suspected to be a mere shadow of the real calculation of England’s homeless population that are dwelling in squats, on the streets, stopping in hostels and temporarily crashing with friends. Research from homeless charity Crisis estimates the number is closer to 380,000.

Contrary to the amount of people living in impoverished conditions on Britain’s streets, on Boxing Day Selfridges claimed to take £1.5million in the store’s opening hour, the company’s most successful hour of trade to date. It was also calculated that by the third week

of January the UK will have spent £22.8billion on the retail industry, a rise of £358million from last yearStereotyping has led to what James considers to be the ‘dehumanisation of the homeless’. 

His time recreating what Christmas for the homeless is like has developed into a public awareness campaign to show them that “Not all people on the streets are criminals, they’re not allalcoholics, they’re not all drugs addicts, but they have something powerful to give back. They’ve got something they can really give to society and their community, and society has really let them slip through the net.” 

From his experiences, James now intends to lobby government with his findings to campaign for more help and support for the homeless, a populace that is often neglected and cut off from the much needed aid society, and the state can give. “I can turn around to them and say, ‘I’m not in this situation but I put myself in a similar situation.’”

He would like to see the government opening late night centres for the homeless, where they can get cheap hot drinks, receive 24-hour advice on houses, jobs and other things. As well as providing somewhere to warm up at night, which can be one of the most dangerous times for someone living on the streets.

“If somebody’s going to come
up to me and set me on fire or stamp on me I’ve got nothing as I’m asleep on the floor” 

James remembers this vividly from his eight nights sleeping rough in abandoned corridors and construction sites. “The sirens, you hear them all night and police cars passing constantly, it reminds you how vulnerable you are, because you’re asleep too, you have no way of protecting yourself.

“I come from a boxing, martial arts background but if somebody’s going to come up to me and set me on fire or stamp on me I’ve got nothing as I’m asleep on the floor. I won’t know if they’re going to pull a knife on me and steal my stuff, it’s really worrying that society isn’t making a bigger deal of it.”

Over the next year he hopes to alter racist views targeted at asylum seekers and immigrants by uprooting to another country for a month and a half without money, knowing the language or having a place to stay. Showing how difficult it would be to start a new life in a foreign country through his first hand video diaries.

James hopes to open the eyes of the British public by allowing them to live through his filmed experiences and appreciate the tribulations facing any individual seeking a better life in a new country. Whilst in the process highlighting the unfair treatment and casual racism hurled at immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK on a frequent basis. He states passionately, “I’m not willing to live in a world where people treat other people like that. If it takes me doing something to get people talking then lets do it.”

You can watch James’s videos via:http://www.youtube.com/user/jamesbeavis1990

Pebble zine: Issue three

Skim the surface of alternative publishing with Pebble zine: Issue three

Open publication

Pebble zine: Issue two

Take a look at December/January's edition of Pebble for an assorted array of features, lifestyle, fashion, beauty, music and culture.

Here's what new from the features section:

• Scott Westwood, travelled across the UK to its furthest apart corners solely reliant upon the public's kindness
• Sniffer bees could be swarming into airports around the world as the revolution
  in anti-drug smuggling measures
• Two sisters, splitting lives and growing up in different countries
• El Mar, Mi Alma - the sea, my soul: Chilean surf film
• Breaking into the industry: the Christmas industry
• How spiritually intelligent are you?
• Sibling rivalries: what you and your brothers and sisters argued about
• 'Honey Curls', a sweet poem to my sister
  
  


Open publication - Free publishing - More alt j
Special thanks to Scott Westwood, Stacey Kendall, all our contributors and the design team.

Go, read it now.



For more from Pebble zine check out the website: www.pebblezine.com

Pebble: prison pen pals

  (Featured in issue one of Pebble zine)

It’s an unusual friendship: a law student from Birmingham and a convict in California. “It’s strange how things are so simple in my life and yet everything’s so chaotic in his,” Kristy, 21, reflects. It’s less than three years ago since she first began writing to Miguel, held at Corcoran prison, San Francisco. 

 

Miguel often sketches pieces for Kristy and has even
designed her a tattoo

Curiosity struck, after she read an article about a woman who fell in love through a prison pen pal service. After he was released, the couple married and moved in together, but the romance was cut short after he refused to give up his other pen pal mistresses and she left him. “I wondered how anybody could be so attached to someone who had committed such a bad crime,” Kristy thought.

Eager to learn about life across the pond, she perused the endless list of inmates hoping for a friend
to write to. “I said I’d never write to anybody like a paedophile or a rapist. But I was really interested in writing to somebody from the mafia, having always been interested in them.” After sending out several letters Miguel replied with a brief handwritten note explaining the crimes he had committed, the structure to his day and his passion for art and tattooing. 

Miguel is locked 5,250 miles away in what the Los Angeles Times once described as ‘the most troubled
of the 32 state prisons’. Their most infamous resident, Charles Manson, now 77, still receives regular fan mail.
In the room that he shares with another ‘celly’ - as he refers to them - Miguel keeps photographs and letters sent by Kristy on a small bedside table. With minimal luxuries, his life sharply contrasts with the liberated existence of people on the outside.


Miguel - Spanish for Michael - is of Mexican descent, but was born in California. He is muscular in build, has short black hair, a moustache and dark eyes. His arms to his hands are laced with tattoos. 

"They knew he had a bad temper, and he’d react in a bad way"

“Certain tattoos he was given because of the certain crimes he committed, as that’s what they do in the mafia,” says Kristy. 

“I think he likes writing to me, because I don’t really know about his world, whereas the majority of his family have either been in prison, been part of gangs or in trouble with the law. 

“I’m not from the world he’s from; his area’s predominantly wrapped around crime and you have to be part of these gangs to survive.”

More recently, Miguel designed a tattoo for Kristy, having formerly owned a tattoo parlour before being imprisoned. “I told him that I was thinking about getting a tattoo, but I’d want a unique design, because I’d never get anything just for the sake of it, and he designed me a piece.” 

Kristy regularly receives sketches from her prison pen pal, who has a resonating passion for fine art. And in return, she sends him a letter at least once a month, giving him the companionship he’s deprived of.

As well as helping her to understand the American legal system for her dissertation, Miguel is currently studying law in prison with ambitions of getting into the profession once he’s granted his freedom.

After a while, you kind of forget about how you met, tells Kristy, “People always say, ‘Aren’t you worried because they’ve got your address?’ but then you think he’s got X amount of years in prison and I don’t see him as dangerous. You have this type of bond; a friendship.

“If I ever wanted to stop writing to him, I could tell him and he’d just stop, but I don’t think it would ever come to that.”

Kristy receives more correspondence from Miguel than his family. “I suppose I’m the impartial person in all of this; he can tell me something and I won’t pass judgement.”

Relationships give prison life normality, and sometimes instead of ink, love can flow from the tip of a pen. But being behind bars can constrain a pen pal relationship from forming into little more than a friendship. Miguel found out first- hand from briefly dating a woman on the outside. “She wanted him to have a phone-sex conversation while he was on a prison pay-phone, could you imagine it, with all the other prisoners there listening!” 

Meanwhile, back in Britain, Kristy’s been dating long-term partner Luke and has no intention of anything more than a platonic friendship. She says: “He sees me as being younger, and I see him as being older.
“He can kind of think of me as a young mind who he can talk to – he can watch me change and I watch him getting wiser and reforming.” 

Far from the sombre side of prison life, on the outside, Miguel was known to have a short fuse, often acting irrationally out of impulse and emotion. It was his tempestuous nature that led to him being arrested in 2006; Miguel kidnapped a man who had been stalking his sister.

He then stole a car with the driver still inside and drove to the desert. Once he’d got there, he gave the keys back to the owner, who drove off. He then threatened the stalker before leaving and was later caught by the police. “His family never told him [about the stalker] because they knew what he was like. They knew that he had a bad temper, and that he’d react in a bad way.” Miguel was only told about his sister’s obsessive ex after he showed up at her apartment.

Since returning to jail for the second time, Miguel’s trying to keep his head down and is mentoring younger prisoners. He has even transferred from a previous Californian jail to avoid the risk of tarnishing his record, which could push his release date further out of reach.

Under America’s Three Strikes Law, if Miguel is prosecuted again, he will be forced to serve a mandatory 25 years sentence, plus time for the crime he committed, meaning reformation and rehabilitation back into society are his only choices.

But with a further ten years to serve until he’s up for parole, regrets plague his mind: “He feels guilty about not being there for his daughter while she goes through school and his son who’s just about to go into prison.”

 "She wanted him to have a phone-sex conversation while he was on a prison pay-phone, could you imagine it"

Seeing past a person’s crime is essential while writing to someone in jail, having the empathy to understand that a criminal is not necessarily a bad person but someone who’s made a bad decision or action.

“It’s kind of like when you get a big crowd of people, they lose their individual identity. You just see them all as prisoners. But then, when you write to certain people, you get the idea that they’re not a bad person. [Take Miguel], he’s done this specific crime for certain motives. And you start to see them for who they are rather than the crimes they’ve committed. So the more you write to them and the more you hear about their life and family, you start to sympathise.” 

In the past few weeks, Kristy filled out a visiting form, so that one day she can meet face-to-face with her friend from afar. 

“He’s said our friendship has made him think about things in different ways, to make a change and want better things out of life.” 

Featured in Pebble zine

Pebble: breaking into the comedy industry

  (Featured in issue one of Pebble zine)

Arron Ferguson, from the rising comedy couplet NOT The Adventures of Moleman, jests about performing alongside a man too tall for buses, 2am satire fried chicken and generally talking funny...(tumbleweed), perhaps we’ll leave the puns to him

NOT the adventures of Moleman
Illustration by Guy Larsen

 


The act
I just do what makes me laugh. Mainly, I work as part of a double act for sketches, but away from the sketches is kind of like one-man variety show kind of thing crammed into five minutes, if that makes any sense. When writing, we tend to start with everyday stuff, then take the bits that are odd and keep adding to that until eventually it ends up funny.

The secret to being funny
I don’t know why you’re asking me that; ask someone successful! I think, ultimately, it’s just, a) making sure you do what makes you laugh and don’t worry about other people, not even the audience, because ultimately, the thing people respond to the most is seeing someone having a good time. And, b) the key - making sure you have your own style that no one else is doing, which is impossible to master unless you keep gigging. So many great acts on the circuit, but all of them, including myself, start off being too much like their favourite comedian.

The chalk and cheese comedy duo
Arguably, the best person to pick to be in a double act is someone you get along with, but at the same time is someone who pisses you off a bit. Then you’re providing different stuff. I can happily say Richard, who I’m in a double act with, is definitely a better actor then me, but then he’s not so good at things like handling hecklers, improvising around stuff that may go wrong, and that’s what I add. I can be the one who knows what to say when a prop breaks in the middle of a show.

How to get paid
You have to hunt online to find pubs that do open mic nights, and then you hope that eventually one of the people running them will like you and start helping you out with it a bit. That’s what we were doing, really. Going on Twitter, and people come back and say they’ve done a good

gig here, it’s nice. Also, there are lots of good Facebook groups, one called the Comedy Collective, where people will post: ‘I run a club, come every Wednesday and get a slot’.

Tips to newcomers
This is massively a product of the era that we live in, but try and provide content in a million different mediums. I think comedians starting out now, for a chance to make a living out of it, need to perform live, they also need to be actively hilarious on twitter, they need to be making YouTube videos, they need to be making podcasts. I think that’s the best way to succeed, hit every single market you can.

The Edinburgh Free Fringe
Doing theatres in London, people are paying six pounds to come in,
it massively changes someone’s mindset. They put six pound over a desk when they walk in, then they’re prepared to enjoy themselves and they go for it. Whereas if someone just wanders in for free, then there’s a ‘f***ing entertain me’ attitude, ‘I can leave, I didn’t pay for this.’ We were lucky and ended up getting invited to start five-ten minute slots at variety nights. One of them was on a bus, which was pretty awesome. The other half of my sketch act is very tall, he’s six foot three and he couldn’t sit on the bus!

Taking his audience to KFC
No one can prepare you for what the Edinburgh can do to you. It does change you. I mean, despite being quite a sensible, grown-up young man, the second I had three weeks built up of festival atmosphere, I just kind of snapped and improvised. And said, “Who in the audience wants to go to KFC?” and they all came. We were just there at two in the morning, drinking champagne and eating chicken from a bucket. It got really weird, but that’s what happens. It’s incredibly strange but you should just trust it.

Featured in Pebble zine

Pebble zine - Issue One

Check out the efforts of myself and many talented others' work in introductory  online publication...

 

 Pebble zine

culture  |  fashion  |  features  |  lifestyle  |  music

 

Pebble zine editors  | photography Joseph Kent

 

Meet the editors (clockwise) : Joshua Saunders (features), Tazz Gault (fashion), Sally Rose McCormack (music), Georgia Scarr (lifestyle), Beth Price (beauty) and Nick Reilly (culture)

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Issue 1: Intimacy

" Pebble is launching its first issue. We explore the beauty of bare faces, the tour rituals of Dry the River and the letters of a long distance friendship. We seek answers on our emotional connection with food, the secrets of locations at home and abroad, and shine a new light on the clothing we keep to ourselves."

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Keep an eye out for the next edition. In the meantime visit www.pebblezine.com ; like Pebble zine on Facebook and follow us on twitter.