interview

Birdwatching is about as entertaining as an obsessive hobby popular with beardy men bearing binoculars can be.  But contrary to sensible expectations, Alex Horne has plucked humour from nature reserves all over the country to develop his new Edinburgh Fringe show.

Helpfully titled Birdwatching, the show tracks the highs and lows of a year of competitive ornithology.  Horne joined his father on a ’Big Year’, a birding term for trying to see as many species as possible in twelve months.  It was a time of father-son bonding, of man against beast, or at least man driving around looking for beast.  It delves into tension, obsession, and according to Horne, is “as exciting as a birdwatching adventure can be.”

It’s not often that comedians turn to ornithology for inspiration, but as Horne states: “There is a lot of humour in men skulking around bushes looking for birds.”  He says audiences find the idea of people sharing a weird obsession quite funny.  Audiences so far have fallen roughly into two camps.  “Some are looking for jokes, some are looking for birdwatching info,” he says.  Feedback from twitchers tends to be of the correcting ornithological detail kind.  With points on grammar.

Horne, 28, had ornithology thrust upon him by his bird-centric father.  Lasting until Horne was seven and “started to develop independence of thought.”  Despite spurning the hobby at a young age, Horne senior didn’t give up hope of enticing his son back in to the feathered fold and gave him a pair of binoculars as a wedding gift.  The binoculars went to Costa Rica on honeymoon, were trained on some colourful central American parrots and the rest is an Edinburgh Fringe show and nationwide tour.

Although maintaining he is still not really a birdwatcher, Horne did immerse himself in the subject, diligently pecking his way through the many books in his father’s library.  “I’m not meant to be into it, but I can feel myself morphing into my dad,” he says with slight anxiety.  If there’s a subtext to Birdwatching it’s the dad thing - specifically ideas of Horne hatching some offspring of his own.  “It’s also kind of about fears of becoming a dad,” he says, “my memories of him when I was six were that he knew everything.  But Dads bluff.”  The birdwatching odyssey, however, did bring a form of enlightenment.  “The most important thing I learnt is that as a dad, you don’t need to know anything.”  

To begin with, Horne found watching birdwatchers more interesting than watching birds.  “The birds were really boring at first - too many LBJs,” (birder jargon for Little Brown Job or dull bird) says Horne, “The birdwatchers are more spectacular.”  Horne thinks of them as being a bit like football fanatics.  Like football, birdwatching has its dark side and it’s called twitching.  Twitchers seek new species to place on their list of birds seen and they can become rather intense about it; “it can ruin friendships and marriages and cause car crashes because they drive around at breakneck speeds and they’re looking up at the sky instead of at the road.”  But ultimately Horne regards birdwatching with affectionate amusement, especially his father’s enthusiasm for it, “he doesn’t mean to be, but he is funny.”

Funny is good, but Horne prefers not to waste time on pure frivolity; “I like shows where you come away with something,” he says, hence his earlier, successful shows on science, body language and even Latin - “after Latin I thought birdwatching would be easy.”  He has a soft spot for the language of ancient Rome, however, “it makes you look at words, and that got me into jokes.”  The Latin show was meant to be an intensive lesson - teaching the audience Latin in an hour.  “That was obviously impossible, so it became less about Latin and more about teaching a language.”  Then he took the show to schoolchildren, which he really enjoyed, “It was great doing it for kids.  They’re so glad not to be in a lesson, they’re nicer than drunken comedy audiences.”

Horne forsook a career in retail to pursue comedy.  Between degrees in languages and journalism he was Deputy Head of Dairy (in a department of two) at Budgens.  His parents sent him there to get a taste of the real world, but instead he won a joke competition, found himself with a gig in a club, and hasn’t had a ’proper job’ since.

A year of birding has left its mark on Horne’s approach to his craft.  “Usually you turn up, do the gig and go.  You learn the ring road system and that’s it.”  Now if he was doing a gig in say, Nottingham, he’d arrive in the afternoon and check out the bird scene before the performance.  Horne says he’s seeing so much more as a result, though “I don’t think most comedians will take it up as a work ethic.”

Despite competitive tension as the ’Big Year’ progressed, the exercise brought father and son closer.  “Now we’ve got birds in common he’s calling me all the time,” and that’s just one of the benefits of what Horne has realised is a most portable hobby.  Has it also made him more observant?  “No, just more distracted. You look up too much while driving.”

Alex Horne will be performing 'Birdwatching' at the Pleasance Above. For tickets
call 0131 556 6550 or visit www.whatareyoulaughingat.co.uk for details.

Read more about the Edinburgh Fringe

Carolyn O'Donnell, MyVillage:, 31st July