by Ed Fortune
Connor Ratliff has created an unusual piece of character comedy with his podcast, The George Lucas Talk Show. The main hosts are Ratliff as George Lucas, Griffin Newman as Watto and Patrick Cotnoir as himself, though he is also the show’s producer. The central gag of the show is that Ratliff is a whimsical and pompous parody of Lucas, and Newman is a hyped-up space bug with anxiety issues. The fact that the comedian is also in tight blue spandex with a strap-on elephant trunk toy on his nose just adds to the effect.
This is a talk show, so obviously, it has guests; when we saw it, the guests were Eden Sher (best known for The Middle and Star vs The Forces of Evil) and Mock the Week comedian Ed Gamble. As this is a show happening during the Edinburgh Fringe, the bulk of the conversation focused on that. This was kind of nice; after a long week of watching shows and socialising, it’s fun to watch people decompress in an entertaining way.
She shared a story about shenanigans at her own show (which Ratliff had also witnessed), and Fringe stories began to be traded. Ed Gamble denied being an ‘Edinburgh Fringe Darling’, claiming instead to be a mainstay, having attended the Fringe for almost 20 years at this point. (One could argue that to be a Fringe Darling, you need your own branded gin, but that’s beside the point.) Gamble also talked about his diabetes, which allowed Ratliff to dive back into his George Lucas character, as the Star Wars director has their own page on the Diabetes UK website.
The show carried on in this charming, haphazard style, which at one point turned into a transatlantic ‘prank’ phone call. The real star of the show here was Griffin Newman, who kept the flow going by adding lots of in-character anarchy as Watto.
A cult smash, The George Lucas Talk Show only runs on a Friday evening and does so run until quite late, which makes it a great end to a busy day at the fringe. It’s fun, but the show already has a firm fan following, so book ahead if you plan on seeing it.
The George Lucas Talk Show is part of the Edinburgh Fringe until August 25th. You can book tickets here and find out more about the George Lucas Talk Show here.
