Molland & Sullivan's top Freestyle Comedy hashtags
Last year BCG dropped in on stand-up comedians Rick Molland and Sully O'Sullivan's Freestyle Comedy show. We were instantly impressed by the duos ability to build up a warm and friendly 'community' vibe in the room as they riffed off ideas thrown at them by the audience.
With no scripted jokes, each Freestyle Comedy is totally unique - the entire show is built around what the international double-act finds out about the audience, resulting in each performance featuring, as STV nicely described it, "60 minutes of never to be repeated punchlines."
As a show progresses, the hosts document the topics encountered via a whiteboard. Then, at the end of the 60 minutes, the audience choose a hashtag to sum up the hour, with the most popular hashtag of the run being added to next year's posters and flyers.
To help you make sense of it all, we asked Molland & O'Sullivan to run down their top 5 favourite hashtags from the last 60 shows...
5: #RandyRandellsMassiveManHole
At No. 5, one of our first ever hashtags and one of the best examples of Freestyle Comedy at work. The hashtag the audience chose on the 4th August 2014 combined the students' nickname for Mr Randell the Psych teacher (canvas middle left), with the oddest thing sold by engineering and building sales duo Paul & John (canvas bottom right). This exquisite example of a hashtag is simply: #RandyRandellsMassiveManHole
4: #KatieTheLesbianWanksOffPigsAndHorsesAtTheScotsmanHotel
At No.4, our longest ever hashtag, what it lacks in finesse is made up by the boldness of the audience who created it. It's too complex to breakdown here, but the "Scotsman Hotel" belongs to Connor (retweeting below), and in the photo, Katie herself.
3: #MenWhoLookLikePaedos
It was Wednesday the 13th of August 2014 during the inaugural season of Freestyle Comedy when one audience had a collective stroke of genius. They didn't have to choose a hashtag to describe that show, they could choose any hashtag - as long as it was retweeted the most, we would be honour bound to put it on 2015's flyers and posters.
That's exactly what happened, and so our third favourite hashtag to date is: #MenWhoLookLikePaedos
Joint 1st: #JamesClarkIsAConvictInADress and #RalphBrownIsAPervert
We'd be lying if we said we weren't concerned after the #MenWhoLookLikePaedos incident that maybe this whole hashtag idea had backfired, but if the 2015 season of Freestyle Comedy proved anything, It's that it's always more fun to pick on your mates in the audience. So in joint 1st place, with over 2000 retweets between them and featuring on 100 A2 posters and thousands of flyers at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, we have: #JamesClarkIsAConvictInADress and #RalphBrownIsAPervert
'Molland & Sullivan: Freestyle Comedy 3' is at 3:55pm at the Beehive Inn on Grassmarket from the 4th to 28th August (no show Tuesdays). It's free entry (although put a bank note in their donation bucket at the end). Listing
The duo are also performing together in 'Freedom Of Speech' at Espionage at 8pm. Listing