“Sexting killed the art of the sexy letter.”

For many of us, unearthing horny letters exchanged by our parents might be amongst our worst nightmares. Not for Milo Edwards. He’s taken it as inspiration for this year’s Fringe show. Starting off as a scattergun of funny material, he’s used a through-line of the 80s to keep his signature historical and political commentary. But things could still get pretty random…

What a premise this is! Is that what you first thought when you discovered these letters?
Sometimes you just get handed  the inspiration for a show.  That’s an unfortunate element of being a comedian, sometimes you make this personal discovery and you’re like, “Well, that’s a show!” I knew of the existence of the letters, because my mum had been re-reading them before she died. But then, they sort of disappeared. I started asking  my sister,  “Are these letters lying around somewhere?, I’m trying to find them’, thinking in the back of my head ‘must write a show!’

And how did you get to that point?
Eventually my sister was going through a wardrobe and found them in a shoe box right at the bottom. I set about reading them in earnest. It’s really interesting, because I think that  sometimes with a show, you start off not knowing what it’s about and you  figure  it out as you go along. This show has happened in reverse,   I’ve ended up writing a show, that has a bit of a different thrust than I’d envisaged. And part of that was because I discovered how horny my parents were!

Many of us are guilty of not seeing their parents as people – do you think you were guilty of that?
I think that’s kind of  a universal experience. Speaking as an orphan, I think you do gradually come to terms with the idea of your parents as people. So my parents died in quite quick succession. Dealing with my dead being ill… and with my mum’s reaction to his death, I think that’s when you start to be like, “Oh, okay, these are people.” They have anxieties and things. As a child, that might not come across. There was a real reversal of dynamic with my mum, where suddenly I was in charge and she’d given up on being the grown up. I think that was the first step on this road to seeing my parents as sexual beings.

Do you think sexting has ruined the art of the horny letter?
The sexy stuff in the letters actually didn’t alienate me too much, partially because it’s not super explicit. It’s very implicit and not particularly graphic. I knew they had sex at least once, that was less of a shock. This is the thing, right? I feel that  not only has sexting killed the art of the sexy letter, that’s almost a red herring to the fact that almost on a global level,  the point of the letter has been killed off entirely. So I really like hand-writing things.

Your promo has been very 80s, how 80s is your show? Do you consider the letters to be a time capsule of that era?
I think the letters almost precisely cover the 80s. They start in 1980 and they end in 1991 or ’92. So they’re almost a perfect  encapsulation of the 80s. I think about this with all decades, it feels like the 1980s really started about 1984 and they really ended  in about 1992. The more I read the letters, it really felt like the 80s was such a big presence in the background of the  show. Particularly for me, I’m someone who always uses a lot of historical illusions and commentary in my shows, so it made sense. There’s a bit I talk about where my mum, in one of her letters, mentions the IRA Tory Party Conference bombing in 1984. So I could write a really fun bit about how we’re not worth blowing up anymore.

What do you think is special about Edinburgh Fringe?
I really love the Fringe, actually. I think  a lot of comedians talk about it very negatively and I’ve never really understood that. There’s always a lot of discussion about, ‘can anyone afford the fringe anymore?’ which is a bit counterproductive. There are cheap ways of doing it. I think the constant reporting of how expensive it is probably does more to put working class people off. The fringe is a great resource to essentially become a  better comedian,  to spend time amongst lots of other comedians who are doing interesting work, to watch a lot and do a show every day to audiences who are quite comedy savvy. It’s  a great place  with almost comedy  lab conditions!

Sum up your show in 5 words?
Comedian finds sexy letters. Funny.

Milo Edward’s show, ‘Catamaran’ is at Monkey Barrel Comedy, CabVol1 from 5th to 30th August.