It’s festival season, kicking off with Latitude where some of our favourite comedians will be performing. We caught up with Tessa Coates of Massive Dad, who will be performing her debut solo show Primates at the festival…
Kate Stone: This is your first solo show but Massive Dad are still going strong right?
Tessa Coates: Absolutely, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. We’re just not doing a live show this year and focusing on writing some really exciting TV projects. This is just a chance for me to do something quite different and talk about things that I don’t have a space for anywhere else.
KS: Tell us about your new show ‘Primates’.
TC: It’s inspired by my degree, which was in Anthropology – the absurdly broad ‘study of humans’, and it’s sort of a collection of ideas and questions about humans and why we are the way we are. But also it’s about sex and there’s a bit with a dolphin. There are some characters but it’s mostly storytelling. I’m not selling it very well. It’ll be nice. Please come.
KS: What are you most looking forward to about performing at Latitude?
TC: I love Latitude. It’s not often you get to perform in a tent to people laying on the ground. When you come off people say ‘how did it go?’ and you say ‘nobody left!’ and that is genuinely the highest praise you can receive. Comedy is not a natural bed fellow with a festival, but I love that Latitude just insisted it should be until we all got on board. Plus it’s so laid back and it’s the last fun weekend before Edinburgh. There’s a real hands-on wood working area, and every year I insist I’m going to whittle a spoon and never do. So if you need me this year, that’s where I’ll be.
KS: You have a podcast with fellow Massive Dad member Stevie Martin, what’s it about?
TC: Oh it’s so fun. It’s for The Debrief and it’s called… The Debrief Podcast. I wanted to call it Get Your Shit Together, but that was vetoed. It’s about trying to get a grip with being an adult. We have a different topic each week, Heartbreak, Saving Money, Being Confident at Work, Sex, Saving the Environment, and we have expert opinions, and then our own non-expert opinions. People have written to us to say it makes them feel less alone, or that we talk about things that they thought only they were going through, but actually everyone is, and those messages just make my heart burst.
KS: And lastly, who are your favourite funny women?
TS: My mum. Then my grandma. Then Victoria Wood.
Tessa Coates will be performing at Latitude Festival, 13-16 July, Suffolk, www.latitudefestival.com. Tessa will also be performing Tessa Coates: Primates at the Edinburgh Fringe 2-26 August, www.edfringe.com
