Shay Mace
Stuart Goldsmith describes himself as a ‘climate comedian’, exploring the climate crisis at comedy festivals, eco festivals and corporate sustainability events to engage people in the important issue of climate change, using comedy to tackle a very serious subject. We caught up with Stuart to unpack his upcoming comedy hour Canary, headed to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month, inviting the audience to become just as terrified as he is about the future of our planet.
You can catch Canary at CabVol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) on August 17th – 30th from 14:25 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi Stuart, tell us about your “climate comedy” show Canary and why you have decided to bring this to the stage now?
Stuart: Although I’ve been doing stand-up for 20 years, Canary is my second solo climate hour, following Spoilers, which won Best Show at Leicester Comedy Festival in 2023. The title comes from the “canary in the coal mine”; that old early-warning system which we’ve repurposed as a metaphor while mostly ignoring the actual warning. The show is about what it feels like to be paying close attention to climate when most of the culture is doing its best not to. I’m not a scientist or a politician; I’m a comedian who’s been reading too much and sleeping slightly less well as a result. That felt like enough to make a show about.
Why now? Because I’m writing this on a GWR train where they’ve asked everyone to keep the blinds down because the temperature outside is so high, and that’s going to start happening much more often.
Shay: Tell us about your process for putting together this hour – what do you do to get yourself motivated and what challenges have you found with this material?
Stuart: I work from a lot of reading and note-taking, then try material at small gigs where I can fail quietly. Climate is a genuinely difficult subject for stand-up because the stakes are real and audiences arrive with complicated feelings: guilt, despair, defensiveness, or even disinterest. My job is to find a way in without preaching. The approach I’ve landed on is to make it personal and self-implicating rather than finger-pointing. I’m not standing there as someone who’s got it all figured out. I’ve got a diesel van. I fly. I eat (some) meat. I’m trying to give people permission to grapple with the subject.
Shay: Tell us about your comedy icons – who are they, and how have they influenced your work?
Stuart: I’ve been hosting a podcast called The Comedian’s Comedian for fourteen years, interviewing comics in depth about their craft, so this question has a complicated answer for me. I’ve had long conversations with people like Maria Bamford, Gary Gulman, and Julio Torres about how they turn difficult personal material into something an audience can receive, and that’s fed directly into how I approach climate. Earlier in my life it was Bill Hicks, for the obvious reasons, then I got suspicious of the prophet-on-a-hill stance and moved toward comedians who are more interested in doubt than certainty. Josie Long for proving you can be openly political whilst still being curious and vulnerable and really funny.
Shay: Has the show been performed anywhere ahead of EdFringe?
Stuart: I’ve been running Canary at work-in-progress nights and small club spots across the UK to stress-test the material. I also performed at the Netflix Is A Joke Festival in Los Angeles in May, which was a useful reminder that climate comedy lands differently depending on the room’s relationship to the subject. I went there directly from Machynlleth, which was an emotional and conceptual BASE jump!
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Stuart: The concentrated nature of the fringe. A run of consecutive shows where you can genuinely develop something night by night is unlike anything else in the comedy calendar. I’m also excited to be at Monkey Barrel, which has an ethos I admire. And I’m looking forward to seeing other people’s work, I run around town seeing as much as I can, like Billy Fringe Guide. Plus I’m very slightly famous for the month, which is SO manageable.
Shay: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind, what would it be and why?
Stuart: Tap water. We take it for granted, it’s in genuine long-term jeopardy, and most people in rich countries have spent the last thirty years paying for bottled alternatives they didn’t need. Also it’s what I actually drink on stage, which feels thematically appropriate for a show about ignoring what’s right in front of you.
A remind, you can catch Canary at CabVol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) on August 17th – 30th from 14:25 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Image Credit: Andre Patten
