Edinburgh Fringe: Smack The Pony star Fiona Allen

The surprise for many will be that she hasn’t done the Fringe before. She is such a familiar comedy face after all, most notably as one-third of the trio behind the cult sketch comedy Smack the Pony that aired on Channel 4 at the turn of the century. But the truth is Allen has spent most of the last 25 years and counting, making a living as an actor and a voiceover artist, turning up in everything from Death in Paradise to Coronation Street. That’s when she wasn’t looking after her husband (she’s married to Michael Parkinson Jr, Parky’s son) and three children. 

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In short, there hasn’t been much time for stand-up.  And yet when she first started testing herself on the open mic circuit, in and around filming for EastEnders (“kidnapping someone at knifepoint – I get that kind of thing”), she admits some of her fellow comedians were asking her why she was on the circuit at all.  “And I said because I’m learning and I’m not an arrogant cow. People don’t get it. ‘Yeah, but you’ve done comedy for years. You know how to do it.’”

But that’s conflating comedy acting with stand-up, she says. “It’s genuinely quite hard to make some people understand it’s a totally different part of your mind that you’re using. It really is.”

It has taken Allen a while to get to the point where she was willing to commit herself to an hour’s show at Edinburgh. Her initial open mic gigs were before lockdown. But the idea in the first place was instantaneous. One morning she just woke up and thought stand-up was the way to go. 

“Suddenly it just popped in there.”  Initially she didn’t think anything of it. “But it kept coming back to me, niggling at me. And I thought, ‘Do you know what? It won’t go away. I’m going to try and do five minutes and see what it feels like. I might absolutely hate it.’ “But I absolutely loved it. And I thought, ‘Oh, I won’t be able to do 10 minutes, I’m such a scatter-head.’ And then I did. I did 10 minutes. And then 15 minutes. And then 20 minutes.”

And now she has an hour’s worth of material ready for the Fringe.

“It’s very much a debut show. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s probably the daftest thing I’ve ever decided to do. But I’ve done it now.”

Smack the Pony (Image: Channel 4)

She’s so enthusiastic about the idea that the words tumble out pell-mell.  She hardly pauses for breath.

“So, I’m coming up to Edinburgh and I’m going to do three weeks. I can’t do the whole four because I’ve got two of my three kids at home. I’ve got my dog. I’m married.  

“Even three weeks is a long, long time. I’ve never been away from them for that long ever, so it’s quite interesting. Because I’m sort of sick of them on the one level. Because they’re just lazy and don’t do anything in the house.”

What do they think of mum doing stand-up? “I don’t think they ever actually expected me to do it. I think it’s a real shock for them. ‘What? You’re really doing stand-up?’ But they think it’s quite cool and they’re behind me on it. They do like it, but they just didn’t think they’d ever hear the words ‘make it yourself’ from me.”

You’re not normally a strict mother? “I’ve got a Spanish mum and Spanish mums do stuff. It’s all about cooking. And I did the same with my kids. I’ve got friends who come over and go, ‘What are you doing?’ And I go, ‘Well, that one wants that to eat, that one wants that to eat.’ They go, ‘I can’t believe you are doing different things for them.’ Well why not?”

It’s fair to say On the Run is largely a reflection of Allen’s life: it’s the comedy of the domestic. Largely about being a mum in other words – “I feel like an Alexa that never gets asked to do anything fun,” she says in the show – and her more recent attempts at filling her spare time. She tried yoga, pilates, swimming, but didn’t really get on with any of them. “I don’t fit into those classes”. 

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The show is also about her own mother and about the people she meets, from her Aussie hairdresser – yes, she does the accent: “I love to do a voice” – to the passive-aggressive mums at school. “We all know those people in the playground who make the mums and dads feel awful. There are always a couple of them.”

In short, Allen says, she is talking about what she knows. “I’m not changing the world. I’m not attempting to. All I can be is me. And this is what I’ve been doing the last few years.”

And she feels comfortable on stage now. That wasn’t always the case. “When I look back at the first three months of the open mic I felt like I was very actressy, I was remembering my script and I daren’t deviate. It would have thrown me. I was staring like a rabbit in headlights. ‘Remember the script, remember the script’.

“I just had to go learn.”  That’s what she has done. And what has been the reward for doing so? “I think there’s a freedom that I didn’t know existed, a freedom of being able to say what I liked.”

Some 20 years on, Allen looks much the same as she did back in her Smack the Pony days; her cheekbones still sharp as papercuts, her Lancashire accent still present and correct despite the fact that she lives in Berkshire.  

She shows off various accents in passing in our conversation; from Glaswegian to Scouse. “My Scottish accent is not bad actually, but there are no characters in my set right now. But if I meet someone when I’m up there I might do it.”

We also talk a little about her appearances in Corrie and Death in Paradise. “It was about 45 to 50 degrees,” she says of the latter. “I nearly fainted. It was so hot.” 

But, really, she admits, Smack the Pony, in which she starred alongside Sally Phillips and Doon Mackichan, is all anyone ever wants to talk to her about. And Allen is happy to do so. It remains a highlight for her, the most fun job she’s ever had, she says.

“Oh my God, sometimes we’d nearly get sent home for laughing. Like you were at school.  “If you are working with other performers who are really funny, that’s a good day at work.”

Smack the Pony, which ran for three series between 1999 and 2003, stood out at the time because the leads were all women and that felt pioneering at the time. (How depressing to think now that it took so long.) The TV landscape has thankfully changed in the last quarter of a century. But Smack the Pony’s groundbreaking work has not been forgotten.

“When I went onto the open mic circuit I got a lot of the youngsters saying, ‘Oh my God, I got into comedy because of you.’ People genuinely love it ... from youngsters to way older than me. It’s still something that people watch and I love that. I’m very proud of that.

I’m contractually obliged to ask if there is any chance of a revival. “We’ve talked,” she says. “I think it’s something that we should do. I think we’ve got so much to say now because we’ve all lived a different life. We all evolve. It would be a different thing, a thing I would really love to do and I think relevant to all the telly watchers.”

Fingers crossed, then. For now she has Edinburgh to get through. Five minutes before her first show what’s going to be on her mind? “My honest thought will be, ‘Oh my God, I hope someone’s bought tickets.’”

And what is Allen going to be doing when she’s not performing? “What I do know is I won’t be partying. I’m going to be concentrating on my show and I think probably taking some lovely walks around and about, eating some really nice food and enjoying not picking up my husband’s socks and my son’s trainers.” 

Fiona Allen: On the Run is at the Pleasance Courtyard Upstairs from Wednesday to August 20, 4.15pm. Visit edfringe.com