I caught up with the talent behind a Betrayal of Penguins – Matt Smyth, Aaron Heffernan and Ross Dungan – as another busy summer came to an end.
For those who haven’t experienced it, briefly sum-up what the Edinburgh festival is all about …
The Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world with over 2000 shows of music, comedy, theatre and general mayhem. To give you an idea of just how much the city transforms: it inflates to more than twice its size, businesses aim to earn 80% of their annual revenues from it and they transform every bar, allotment and moat and bailey in the city into a Fringe venue – even old dilapidated bridges, which wouldn’t be safe enough for trolls, are used. For the month Edinburgh populates itself with the famous, the cool and the sound. For some reason, once again this year, A Betrayal of Penguins were allowed go back and hang out.
How did it go for you guys this year?
On the plus side: This year was our best year yet. Another sell-out run for the month, coupled with some of our best reviews yet and great audience feedback.
On the negative side: Aaron was sick most days after eating a kilo of mince every night when he was tipsy; Matt missed a flight home to a wedding in Dublin when he fell asleep at the departure gates and Ross’s tuxedo now smells worse than an egg manufacturers run on nuclear energy.
Matt and Ross played on the Lakelands under 11’s soccer team together who were easily one of the least successful football teams of all time, losing their first match together 8-1. Matt and Aaron met at ‘Rock and Roll’ camp when they were 14 years old. The CD was never released. All three gentlemen met again years later in Players theatre in Trinity. So, if you can’t make it in Music or Sport, use comedy when you’re older to make fun of the genuinely talented people in life.
How did Trinity help you to get to where you are now?
We wouldn’t be a group if it wasn’t for DU Players. Their continued support is amazing yet also worrying – we hope they don’t expect payment or shit like that, these tuxes don’t wash themselves, evidently.
How did Trinity help you to realise you were funny?
When Aaron nearly won a joke SU presidential campaign because people thought it was funny, we thought we might be on to something. Considering we learned words like ‘student levy’, ‘inflation’ and ‘official complaint from the school of nursing’ while on the campaign trail, its probably best we pulled out…
We’re all biased towards saying DU Players so it’d make more sense to say ‘Societies’. Try all of them, find what you’re good at and use it to make the friends you’ll have for life. No one actually likes the people in their course, what are you going to talk about on a night out? Proust? No matter what course you do, all you’ll end up talking about is Marcel Proust.
Favourite thing about Freshers’ Week …
Free stuff.
Least favourite thing about Freshers’ Week …
How un-awesome the excess of free stuff makes you feel by the Friday. Surprisingly not exclusive to the free beer.
Funniest Freshers’ Week Story:
When a society accidentally ordered thousands of sliced pans instead of a couple of hundred. The bread-wars of 2009 still haunt many of its veterans.
If you could give one piece of advice to incoming Freshers, what would it be?
Rinse and Repeat. Always repeat.
Worst Thing about Trinity …
Obnoxious seagulls and pigeons that are the same colour as the cobbles. Or Cameligeons.
Best Thing about Trinity …
As Aaron would say, ‘the Chicks’.
Funniest First Year Story …
When Aaron was in first year a certain society ran an event called the Gum-ball challenge. You can read up about this online in the herald (http://www.herald.ie/news/naked-trinity-students-spark-chaos-1622256.html). You can decide whether it was the best or worst thing that happened that year in College. Ross did nearly manage to capture a duck though, and to this day it remains to him ‘the one that got away’. In other news, Matt was not re-elected Treasurer for the following year.
We’ve got a few gigs and festivals around Ireland and the UK. Potentially the far reaches of the Adelaide Fringe Festival if we can manage to get off College and work for 6 weeks at a time. Counting the days until A Betrayal of Penguins crosses the line from hobby into well-paid work. Keep in mind though that we are also holding out on the same happening with proffessional football and poker playing.
Charismatic, charming and very, very funny, I am not the first to say it: Aaron, Matt and Ross are destined for the Big-Stage, see them while you can still afford to.
