Jess Carrivick is a BBC New Comedy Award finalist 2025 and Leicester Square Sketch Off finalist. A 2021 BAFTA Rocliffe Shortlist writer, Jess has spent four years honing her skills in character, clown, improv, and sketch comedy across the London alternative comedy scene, and is the resident host of popular open-mic night Laugh Lines at Bard Books. She is bringing her show, ‘For Your Consideration’ to the Fringe in August. We spoke to Jess about the show, her wish to get on the ‘Sold Out’ board at the Gilded Balloon at least once, and the joys of the cheese, ham, and mushroom crepes from Panquake. 

Can you tell us about ‘For Your Consideration’?

It’s a character comedy show, which was inspired by my real home movies, and I dug through the archive to find that a bunch of stories that should have been told, or a bunch of really wacky ideas that inspired some sketches that I already had bubbling. So essentially, the audience is the Academy, and they are watching every single film ever made by Jack and Jessica Carrivick between 1995 and 2001 with a lot of creative license. I would say I’ve edited it for everyone’s best view.

For those who might be unfamiliar with you, how would you describe your approach to writing and performance?

I do a lot of different types of comedy; improv, character, clown, sketch, stand-up, so I think I’ve sort of woven quite a lot of different elements of my background. Each character is a vignette, where there’s a different kind of style or a different part of my toolkit. So some characters have fallen a bit more clowny, some a little bit more performance-based acting wise. It’s a Scrabble bag of all the things that I would do, I would say,

For how long have you been working on the show? It sounds like as much of a feat of editing as it is writing.

Yeah, so in ’24 I did a WIP, and I did a very different version. It was called ‘Attention Seeker’. It was a very different kind of idea, and I kind of hit a wall with it, and then started archiving my home movies, and then it kind of like opened up. ‘Ah, okay, actually, maybe if I take it on this direction, I can kind of put those two things together.’ So then I took up the show in a very rough format last year for a limited run, and I’ve just sort of been working on it ever since, and now it’s back for the full month, fully able to breathe and actually have its proper showcase.

Do you think that’s it in its finished form now, or is there any scope to tweak it as the month goes on?

With Edinburgh, I feel like the show you start with is never the show you finish with, and that’s the joy of being able to do it every single day. And I think there’s too much… too much fun can be found from one performance to another, and actually something that Elf Lyons – who’s my director – she always says is that your shows are siblings, not twins. They’ll never be the same; they are genetically the same, but they will never be the same every time, and I’m sure things will adapt, or a new joke will get cycled in, I don’t think it’s ever done.

As you said, ‘For Your Consideration’ is directed by Elf Lyons, what has she brought to the show, and how is she to collaborate with?

I think she is really good at punching up a script and pitching ideas, and also she’s very much the definition of ‘kill your darlings’. If the joke isn’t good enough, she’ll be like, ‘Why are you so married to that joke when you know that that joke’s better?’ And she’s really good at pushing and giving structure which I found very helpful and necessary, and [she’s] just a very good at giving script advice.

Actually, I would say a really great tool she gave me was, write out all your jokes as lines and bold where the joke should be, where the laugh should be. There’s not enough bold, you don’t have enough jokes. Because I have like big monologues, and to have big gaps of no bold is like, ‘Yeah, too right. We need to have more jokes in.’ So she’s so good at pushing your script to where it needs to be. Being a clown as well, she’s helped pick out all the clowny moments as well,

So she’s really helped with the sort of pacing and rhythm of the show?

I think she’s very good at seeing what you’re good at, and then pushing you to lean into it, and I think that’s that’s really helpful to have. Having any director be able to have an outside view can point out what you need and what you’re not seeing. She’s so good at doing that, so yeah, she definitely performed a lot of surgery on the original concept. We’re happy with the outcome.

Did you ever find out from your parents what inspired the home videos in the first instance? What made them decide to document your family life from the mid 90s?

Yeah, so we were very fortunate in that my dad was working for the BBC at the time, and he got to borrow a camera. So we got a video camera in the ’90s purely because he basically stole it from the BBC! It was like a very old security camera, so it wasn’t some high-tech thing, but it just meant that we had access to one. So my brother at a very early age… I think he learned how to use a VHS player before you learn how to read. So he was the one that was like, okay, well, we’re going to use the video camera.

That was our Summers just doing that, and it’s quite fun watching how we’re running around with the video camera, and go through to my mum, who’s just head in her hands trying to read the newspaper. I think it’s because my brother knew how to use it [that] we have so much video footage. I mean, he’s no Kubrick at the age of five; it was not filmed well. There’s about a 45 minute video clip of him just filming apples on the floor, because it’s too heavy for the camera to be held up that long. But, because he was so inspired, and loved film from a young age – and still loves film – me and my sister just reaped the benefits of being able to be part of that from a really young age, which is great.

What are your hopes for the show? What would constitute a successful Fringe for you?

I think if I can be on the [sold out] board of Gilded Balloon at least once, that’s just a milestone I would love to hit, and I think because I’ve been taking this show up for a little bit, I’d say that maybe 300 people have seen the show so far. I would love for 1000 people to see the show, and to be able to hit that milestone, I think would make me feel like, ‘Cool, a lot of people got to experience this thing!’ It just feels too small, and I just want to share it as much as possible. So, the more seats the better, I think, is kind of where I’m at.

What for you are the best and the worst things about The Fringe?

I always describe the Fringe as having a pendulum, and sometimes it swings in your favor, and then by the afternoon it might very much swing away. I love that you live in a bubble for a month where you are surrounded by like-minded individuals, people that just want to be part of it, and everyone is there to do that thing. There’s an amazing bubble there, and then the worst part of that, I think, is when you burst that bubble and return back to life in September. You think you’re somewhere, and you come back, and you’re like, ‘Oh no!’ That was a swim from a small pond to a very big, large pond and then you’re back to reality. I think I do love the Fringe bubble, but, you know, it’s a rough ride, as I’m sure you’re more than aware, a lot of fun can happen and a lot of magic can happen from the beginning to the end of the month.

And did you have any particularly memorable Fringe moments from your last run?

Yes. I think I would say that there was a moment where… you know when you take up a show and you know that a character is funny but it’s just not landing, and then getting to try every single day. I think there was one character which has got such a big monologue, and if it lands, great, it’s a laugh every 10 seconds, but if it doesn’t land, it’s a very quiet five minutes.  I think that there were days where suddenly things clicked, and it just gives you [a feeling] like, ‘Oh yeah, you weren’t crazy, there was something to this!’ And then I think also just rewarding myself with one of those [street food pop-up] crepe Panquakes. Just going there for a cheese, ham and mushroom crepe is just exactly what you need when life gets too hard, so those are probably two of my most memorable moments.

Beside the show, can we expect to see you performing elsewhere during August in sort of guest spot compilation shows, etc?

So one of the guest spots I’ll definitely be doing is ‘Bad Clowns and Good Friends‘, which is like a bit of a cabaret variety act on. I think it’s like Virgin Hotels, which is on Cowgate. Every Friday and Saturday night they do a show. And then I’m also hoping to do ‘Not Another Quiz Night‘, which is also on at Gilded Balloon. I did a spot last year, and and then I did a weekend in Brighton with their show as well. It’s a quiz night where they get acts on to do maybe a couple of minutes of their show, but weave it into being a quiz question. At the Brighton Fringe, they asked me to be Mona Lisa, but it was like, ‘What’s Mona moaning about?’ So I did a horrendous Italian accent as Mona Lisa, which is a bit more Mario than Mona, but I’m hoping to do quite a few nights with them as well.

Are there any other shows or performers at the Fringe that you would recommend that perhaps deserve a bit more attention than they might otherwise get?

Oh my god, so many. Let me look at my list of people that I’m really excited to see… I’m very excited to see Rory Cargill, because we’re in the same world, although his thing is more about sort of TV and made up TV shows from a nostalgic period, whereas mine is a bit more film. I’m also excited to see ‘GUMSHOE!‘ as well, which is a great sort of detective noir spoof, and he’s [Christian Dart] returning.

I’m also really excited to see Lawrence Dodd. His show is directed by Lara Ricote, and it’s Lawrence Dodd: ‘This Can’t Be It‘. I’ve just heard some really interesting things about it. It’s very clowny, so that’s someone else I’m quite excited to see. I mean, I could keep going, but yeah, there’s, there’s loads. I’m also excited to be back at Gilded Ballon, and kind of see who else is performing there, and there’s a few people doing their debuts this year. Another debut I’m quite interested in… I’m always talking about loads of male comedians, I need to be talking about female comedians as well! But Jonathan Oldfield is debuting this year as well, and I’m very keen to see his full hour of ‘Exquisite Corpse‘.

‘For Your Consideration‘ is at Nook at Gilded Balloon Teviot from Wed 5 to Sun 30 Aug 2026