Ben Fensome
... on play-writing, embracing the Edinburgh Fringe, and the journey to finding his unique comedic voice
Ben Fensome is an actor, scriptwriter and comedic content creator. He has just finished filming various roles in The Stand Up Sketch Show - which you can catch Friday 7th June on ITV2.
How old were you when you knew you wanted to tread the boards? And what attracted you to the industry?
I was about 10 when I first started to like acting. My parents took me to a summer drama club, and at the end of it we did a performance. It unlocked something for me. Basically, that I really liked performing in front of an audience. The feeling of making them laugh, or if you're doing something more serious, making them lean in. It’s quite a difficult thing to explain, but I just knew it was a thing that I really, really loved.
After the summer club, it was a natural progression - the people who ran it did a Saturday improvisation class which I loved. And then once I found out what drama school was, I thought - oh, it's a way you can do acting every day! And so I went to college and then drama school and naturally stepped into it.
In addition to performing, you’ve been playwriting since your college years, first via The Royal Court Young Writers Program, then with writing mentor Rikki Beadle-Blair MBE (who runs Team Angelica), and in 2018 you completed an MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media, from Central School of Speech & Drama. Where do you think you learnt the most about writing?
Probably with Rikki, because it was so hands on; we got to workshop the plays and perform them in front of a live audience who would give feedback. Also, because of who he is - so many actors want to work with him. So there was a lot of license and I could really just experiment. So, I wrote my play, The Miriam Gospel, with a chorus of 10, which meant 15 actors around the table, which you would never normally find the money for. But because everyone was just happy to be in the room working with Rikki, we could do it.
He also taught me about editing and not being too precious about things, as well as the danger of writing being overworked.
Your most recent play, ‘Buff’, about a single gay man navigating the age of Tinder, debuted in 2023 with fantastic reviews, and you ended up taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Can you talk a bit about the experience of putting that play on?
I'd worked with Scott Le Crass, the director, before on another play and we were talking about gay plays - what they're like, who gets cast in them, how they're marketed etc. We were trying to work out what the gap was in terms of what hasn't been explored in detail yet. I had written a play for my MA dissertation and I wasn’t happy with it at all. But it had these particular themes in and so I ended up morphing it into a skeletal draft for ‘Buff’.
Then we workshopped it over two years, using different actors. After a few false starts with producers, we decided to put it on ourselves. We found this amazing Irish actor called David O'Reilly and got into the Vault Theatre Festival, which was a real lightning in a bottle moment. And because we got such a great response from it we applied for the Edinburgh National Partnership (via the Pleasance Theatre, who link up with regional theatres around the country). They picked it up and provided us with a grant and marketing support, and along with the incredible generosity and work from Sibearita Productions we went to Edinburgh.
Do you have any advice for people looking to take a show to the Edinburgh fringe?
Well, it's difficult because you can do all the prep, and then once you're there, you realise there are so many things that you should have done differently. Simple things like - we had printed flyers out on what we thought was good quality paper… but we hadn't taken into account the weather and so these lovely flyers were just disintegrating in the rain.
We stayed for the whole month and it is a lot - it can feel very overwhelming, particularly in the first few weeks. So if I'm giving advice, it is just to pace yourself. We were really lucky with The Pleasance, because there was lots of mental well-being support on offer.
We didn't become a darling Fringe-award show, however, we had very good audience numbers, good reviews and we got a touring producer out of it - which are three of the main things. So if you don't get on the five star, sold-out board every day, or can’t afford magazine column interviews, it's not the end of the world! It's really just about the experience, like so many things in life.
Will you be bringing ‘Buff’ back to the stage at any point?
We were hoping to do a big UK tour this summer and we actually had lots of venues lined up, but unfortunately we just didn't quite get the funding. But we’ve got an amazing production team and they are very keen to try again for next year. So hopefully it'll be 2025 when we get to see it again.
Fantastic! Ben, you went viral this year, with your comedy lip-syncing videos on Instagram & TikTok. The videos you post have such a buoyant and delicious energy. What was your initial aim or expectation when you started making them?
I started off just over a year ago doing these very esoteric classic literature sketches - just experimenting with silly sketches, mainly Pride and Prejudice based. And they were fine, people watched them and enjoyed them. But then I ended up really not liking TikTok as a platform. So I uninstalled it on my phone for nearly a year.
And then I don't know what it was - I turned 37 in October and thought I'm three years away from being 40, and it’s going to be 15 years since I graduated, so it's now or never really to get industrious.
I saw a clip of Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda do this funny interview and I just randomly thought - I could probably do something with this - and so I reinstalled TikTok and found out it was relatively easy to put together. I posted it and it did very well, and then I did the Judi Dench and Maggie Smith one and that did really, really well.
And so I just thought, oh right - this is relatively easy to do and people seem to enjoy it - so I'll just carry on doing it. And so yes, it’s become a thing that I do.
Ben’s Instagram video of Judi Dench on the Graham Norton Show. (Click to watch full video)
I’ve noticed the comments section on your videos is very joyful (which is obviously not always the case on social media these days!) People clearly feel very uplifted by your content, what’s it been like, connecting with your audience in such a heartfelt way?
It's really, really nice! Because - I basically gurn at my phone and then post it, and I hope that people like it, but what's really surprising and nice is when someone says, ‘I've had a really bad day, and this has made it better’. I don't post them specifically with the intent of helping someone out with their mental head space. But if, and when, it does that, it's so nice and encouraging.
Ben’s Instagram video of Lauren Bacall classic coffee commercial. (Click to see full video)
Ben, your sense of comedy and comic timing is so original and unique, and with over 60,000 followers across your combined social media platforms, it’s fair to say people have really resonated with it. Has comedy always come naturally to you?
Yes, but part of me is actually kind of frustrated with myself - if it was this easy for me to post silly videos and have people like them, then I would have done it a long time ago! I think it’s actually taken me a long time to work out what my strengths are.
I remember at drama school, they kept wanting me to go down the route of, and certainly I kept being cast as, Kings and lawyers and people in authority - which makes sense because I'm tall and have a deep voice. So I think it's taken me a long time to work out that my strengths aren't really in that area, my strengths are more to do with making my face look like Wallace and Gromit and that sort of thing.
Haha, yes the spirit of Wallace is definitely alive in some of your videos! I’d love to know, what keeps you inspired?
Art in general. Music inspires me a lot, and there was a long time where I was reading a great deal. But I love going into a gallery - just sort of sneaking around and having a look at what catches my eye. I love seeing dance as well, because I think I'm a bit of a frustrated dancer. Anything creative you know; just purely artistic and expressive.
What has been the hardest aspect of your career so far?
The rejection - continually going up for stuff and not getting it. In the audition room, it can be that age-old thing of - you want something so much that you end up pushing it away.
So I think the hardest thing has been getting in my own way and not always trusting myself. Because over time that kind of builds up, and I’ve learnt that you sometimes need to take a step away from it and come back to yourself.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?
The most rewarding thing is when you work with people, you get inspired by them and together you make something. Because it's really hard to put a play on, it's really, really difficult. Even putting one on in the back room of a pub takes a lot of work and once you get a team together and get all the elements, it's kind of a miracle. And so whether you're doing a read-through in a pub, or a full show at the Edinburgh fringe - it's like ‘oh, we actually did it!’
And lastly Ben, how would you like to be remembered?
Fondly.
I ask every interviewee what culture they have been enjoying. Here are some of Ben’s favourite recommendations:
FILM
Tootsie
Spirited Away
The Hours
Mary Poppins
TELEVISION
Bojack Horseman
Green Wing
I May Destroy You
Dinnerladies (no really)
BOOKS
Middlemarch by George Eliot
What You Can See From Here by Mariana Leky
If Not Winter; Fragments of Sappho by Ann Carson
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
MUSIC
Cowboy Carter, Beyonce
Joni Mitchell (any album)
Harmonium, John Adams
Alto Saxophone Concerto, Kapustin
Click to visit Ben’s - website, Instagram, TikTok and Spotlight page
Love this guy! Living with my sis and taking every opportunity we can (celebrating with high fives) to interject p and p phrases into everyday life I find his sketches very entertaining and boy, is his timing perfect! ❤️
Great interview, your questions elicited some really interesting responses and gave insight into a performer’s life from all angles