Interview: Jesse Tendler, ‘Funny Guy’

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with Jesse Tendler about Funny Guy.

Tell us a little bit about you and your career so far..

I’m the director of Funny Guy as well as playing the role of Bill. I've been acting professionally since I was three-and-a-half years old and by the age of 14 I had appeared in hundreds of television commercials as well as starring in several movies and I was a regular in sitcoms. Then I went to college and studied engineering and business and decided that was not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, so as soon as I graduated, I went straight back to acting. Since then, I've been producing, directing, and acting.

What is your show about?

Funny Guy is a show about the pitfalls of life, love, and betrayal. It’s about two couples in New York City and their friendship, the competition between them and complications that arise in those relationships when money becomes an issue. It's a deep dive into the psychological complexity of the human condition.

What was the inspiration for funny guy, and what's the development process been to get this on stage?

Patrick Nash is the writer of Funny Guy, and his inspiration came out of the pandemic. He has a neon workshop in New York and creates all sorts of neon signs and uses neon as an art form. He had these large neon human-like figures that he was using for various art installations, and we decided it would be interesting to use them in a new show. The inspiration came from very dark comedies. The development process has been a long one over four years. I got involved about a year ago as director and also ended up being cast as the character Bill. The show had a staged reading in London about two years ago and since then we’ve been making adjustments and the current iteration and cast we have assembled have given the show new life.

What made you want to take Funny Guy to the Fringe?

In 2023, I was in Edinburgh directing a one-act play entitled, 2-Faces, which was a great experience. This gave me a good handle on doing shows at the Fringe, so I was excited to have a second show to bring back and to work with Patrick.

Apart from seeing Funny Guy. What's your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

I would say see all of it, whatever the Fringe has to offer. There are close to 4000 different and amazing shows from all over the world. See as much theatre as you can. There are a couple of shows in particular that I want to shout out. One is ‘ Do This One Thing For Me,’ at Bedlam Theatre and there’s another called ‘Unseen’ at Zoo Playground, and both are running for most of August. Catholic Guilt by  Kelly McCaughan at Underbelly is a show from last year that that sold out and was immensely popular.

Why should people book tickets to see Funny Guy?

It's an awesome show. It's got ambition, betrayal, and a lot of things I won’t tell you about because I don’t want to ruin it for you but there’s also ventriloquism and a seven-foot-tall neon marionette.

When and where can people see Funny Guy?

At Greenside (George Street) The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-24 George Street EH2 2PQ, Lime studio, Venue 236, between 2-10, 12-17, 19-24 August 2024 (not 11,18) at 17:20