We caught up with Sam See to talk about his hit Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, Off With Your Head.
Introduce yourself please.
I’m a comedian originally from Singapore who’s moved to London, trying to make it in the big city, with a dream to be on Live At The Apollo. I’m sure there’s nothing that’s ever going to stop that!
Before I got into stand-up, I studied video game programming and development as a governmental scholar for my country. I gave that all up to pursue comedy and look at me now! Constantly worried about getting my handphone snatched by a cyclist.
What is Off With Your Head? How would you pitch it to someone who has never heard of panel shows?
It is an interactive medieval game show, where guest rulers come on to try and run a 12th century kingdom. The audience will decide their fates, whether they will live or die, and will play various members of our kingdom. It’s a show where everyone gets involved, but only if they want to, and no two reigns are the same. Literally, we’ve designed it to be impossible. It’s a raucous show where anything can happen, literally last night at point of typing one ruler was decapitated by a masked singer dressed as a fox.
The show was designed by myself and game designer Stephen Case, and we’ve worked very hard on not just making it a fun show, but also the mechanics to make it an actual game that players can get absorbed into on stage.
And how would you pitch it to someone who loves DropOut or Radio 4?
For Dropout fans, it’s the spontaneous chaos you expect from Make Some Noise, the gaming wonder from Game Changer, and the storytelling of Dimension 20, but specifically from Never Stop Blowing Up.
For Radio 4 fans, it’s a medieval madness, where the kingdom is truly run by the peasants, and wit is out the window as silliness reigns as king.
Why is Regicide so much fun?
I, a foreigner in these United Kingdom who wants to keep his visa, thinks there is absolutely nothing hilarious about regicide, especially not of any current reigning monarchs who may or may not have a name that rhymes with Ka-Chows.
Is Improv taking over comedy?
I think improv is like Haileys Comet. It’s not always here, but when it is it shines brightly and impress even the coldest of hearts. With the need for new content on an almost daily basis, improv is thriving in this current media climate, but when the algorithm game changes, as it always does, I feel it will wane. But I have no fear, as the comet must make its way around again someday.
Long story short: Nope, ain’t nobody gonna give a TV deal to student improv teams.
What are the origins of this show? Why this format?
Stephen and I came up with the idea at the Fringe, as we were thinking of a fun and nerdy project that we could both work on. At the time, we were both into the video game Reigns and tried finding a way to translate that game into a live show as a concept. We tested it out on Zoom calls and Twitch streams, changing it from a choose your own adventure style live show into an open world adventure style, where the players can choose any path they want to go on, with me as host trying to make sense of it all to the audience.
We were also heavily influenced by The Dark Room, and knowing that we never want to be a pale imitation of that, we really focused in the players having as much agency as possible. The show is now designed to give players as much room to create as possible, for example changing one of the show’s scenarios from having a giant sea serpent attack the land, to allowing them to create said monster in any form or shape they choose.
With all of that, we start in 2023 as a WIP on Monday nights, launching it as a full show in 2024, and three years later the show has had amazing runs in the Edinburgh Fringe, selling out at the UK Games Expo, and getting invited to the Liverpool Gaymes Fair. We do want to bring it to more places, so hit us up, nerds with financial backings!
What is your favourite part of the show?
This is a hard question, because I genuinely love every aspect of it. From designing the mechanics to designing the artwork, from briefing the players to killing them on stage, there’s a lot to enjoy on the production side.
If I had to narrow it down, production-wise its finding new players to experience our game show, and performance-wise it is finding a way to kill each ruler based on the problem they’re solving in the kingdom. Sometimes its as easy as dying of a bodily wound. Sometimes, it’s as weird as being sued by the Warner Music Group, and you don’t know till the words come of your mouth.
Why the Edinburgh Fringe?
It is the only comedy festival in the world where you can have a run for 20+ days and have a steady flow of audiences coming in. This is especially for a format show, which does have people occasionally looking down on in other countries as ‘not real comedy’. The Fringe allows for all fans of all genres, and I can find them much more easily there, and most importantly that they can find me.
What was your inspiration for the show?
Reigns, The Dark Room, Game of Thrones, Blackadder, and of course Panto.
Where else can we see you?
Kings or Queens?
Neither, by the time they’re done playing our show.
Comic Books or Stand Up Comics?
Comic Books. People can still read and by excited by comics even as far back as the Golden Age. Stand-up from even 3 years ago doesn’t hold up now. I loe stand-up, but it just doesn’t have the longevity that other artforms have.
Truth or Beauty?
Truth. I rather the ugly reality over the pristine lie. I spent 90% of my life in Singapore, a country so beautiful that you knew it was a lie, so now I yearn for some sweet, delicious, repugnant truth.
Find Tickets here. Find out more about Sam here.
