Fringe preview: The Sleeping Trees

The Sleeping Trees are a hat trick of comedy-loving friends who specialise in genre-bending sketch shows covering everything from Sci-Fi to the Mafia. William Gadsby Peet discusses friendship and fights to the death with group Alpha, James Dunnell-Smith

  • Who are the Sleeping Trees?

We are James, John and Joshua, a highly physical sketch comedy trio based in London. We’ve been writing and performing together for the past nine years and lived together got the last six!

  • How did the group come about?

We started the group at university for a bit of fun, we were encouraged by the university to take something we made to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010 so we did! Here we are eight years later about to do our ninth Fringe with our ninth show!

  • What can we look forward to from the show?

Lots of silly sketches, surreal characters, fast-paced, physical humour and a tonne of outdated references. It’s more of a sketch show than our previous work but it will still have a central narrative running right the way through it.

  • What is it about sketch comedy that appealed to you over stand up?

I think we just really enjoyed being on stage with one another, playing these farcical characters whilst still keeping it loose and open to improvisations, as you do in stand up. Sketch comedy can become something truly wonderful when blended with narratives and concepts you typically wouldn’t associate with it.

  • Who would be the most likely out of the three of you to survive a Hunger Games style fight to the death?

Well I’m answering these (James), so I’m inclined to say me, however, I’ve never watched The Hunger Games and I usually just cower in fight to the death style situations. So in the interest of fairness I’ll say, still me.

The Sleeping Trees perform World Tour at the Star Inn on July 24. For more information and to book tickets (£8), visit: guildfordfringefestival.com/

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