Altitude Festival: Stand-up snowballs in Austria
With the Altitude Festival turning 10, co-founder Andrew Maxwell tells us of its secret Edinburgh origins, how the ski slopes call for the same mindset that's needed onstage, and the kind of audiences that know how to come in from the cold.
It's a curious thing, but one of Europe's most unique and successful comedy festivals takes place in an idyllic village in Austria's Tyrolean valley.
"You can walk from one side to the other in five minutes," says curator Andrew Maxwell. "It's very traditional, a very proud place. There are wooden carvings on all the sides of buildings – and it has the majesty of the Alps all around you. If you remember Heidi, that's what it looks like," he adds, recalling Johanna Spyri's famous children's novel.
Mayrhofen only has a population of 4,000, but despite this it certainly copes with comedians making the annual pilgrimage. After all, it has long been well accustomed to visitors. It's just these visitors used to only come to the attractive ski-resort for the piste, but for one week a year they now also slide in for the comedy.
Andrew Maxwell co-founded the Altitude Festival with fellow comedian Marcus Brigstocke, and they are now celebrating its 10th anniversary with many stand-ups they personally introduced to skiing and snowboarding. Headliner John Bishop first appeared at Altitude in 2008, while Jim Jefferies also returns this year and there are also Alpine debutants, such as Katherine Ryan.
As Maxwell is a two-decade-plus veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe, it should come as little surprise the inspiration to start an Alpine comedy festival was during a typically intense August. However, the idea was really born out of the ways comedians cope with the stresses of the Fringe and, surprisingly, with the sight of a familiar landmark for Edinburgh residents.
From the Pentland Hills to the Alps
The relentless pressure on performers at the Fringe coupled with thousands of comedians all being in one place at the same time tends to keep the alcohol flowing.
"At some point the Fringe just becomes too sodden with booze," says Maxwell. "Decadence falls into decay. I'll often scoop up a couple of comedians and make them come and do something else. The really easy one is to go up Arthur's Seat. The other is to go down the Waters of Leith to the Dean Galleries and look at some art for a bit."
As relaxing as these jaunts are, Maxwell was intrigued by something a little more high-energy, noticing: "In Edinburgh you can see that white flash down the hill."
The white flash Maxwell is talking about is, of course, the dry ski-slope at what's now called The Midlothian Sports Centre near Hillend.
"Altitude originally came about because of a trip to Hillend. I convinced Marcus, Ross Noble and Jason Byrne to come with me. By Marcus's own omission he has a very addictive personality and he absolutely loved it. Now, to love snowboarding on a dry ski slope is insane. It's like loving an ice-cream in a sandstorm. But he was so into it that he started sniffing around all the English-speaking ski resorts around the Alps and found someone willing to put some gigs on."
After three years in Meribel, France, they moved the festival to its current picturesque, chocolate-box setting in Austria where it grows year upon year.
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By taking comedy into a new wintry terrain, it's been down to Maxwell and Brigstocke to become mentors to the many comedians they inititate in to the joy of snow sports.
"I've introduced a lot of comedians to snowboarding. They've all loved it. Craig Campbell had never been before. I taught Craig to snowboard in an indoor ski-reserve in Milton Keynes."
Maxwell also reassures our concerns that inexperienced skiers, with half a mind on their stand-up gig, surely invite an injury list of Arsenal proportions: "There's been a few injuries over the years. It can happen, but nothing too bad."
Though Maxwell soon persuades us comedians especially have the right mindset, "It's that thing of learning to fall, it's very much part of it.
"Comedians have malleable egos. You accept that you are going to fail with stand-up sometimes, but if you're giggling when you fall over then it's a better fall. There's definitely similarities in the risky individualism of both comedy and snowboarding, and also how you're still riding out with other people.
"Comedians are ruthless individualists with a massive communal spirit. At the Edinburgh Fringe, we're all doing our own thing but we are really near to everyone else. We're like coral. Individually we're just one coral, but you'll only spot us if we're in a big group. I think that's the same with snowboarding. You're in the moment, it's profoundly risky, it takes a lot of nerve and a lot of imagination."
The similarities between stand-up and snowboarding do not end there: "When you get good at snowboarding or skiing, it is your willpower that takes you to the other side of the valley. You're making those split-second decisions like that you make on stage. If someone heckles you, you have to think, 'Do I cut in? Or do I head straight down the mountain? Do I plough on with this heckler?'"
Scottish and Alpine audiences
Reading an audience like this is naturally an essential tool for a comedian on which to base those split-second decisions. But, when actually performing in Mayrhofen, isn't the audience there traditionally more inclined to skiing than stand-up?
"If we had a Venn diagram, the intersection of people who love snow and love laughter would make for an amazing audience. In year one (in Meribel) it was 100% ski-fans who liked comedy, but every year that dial clicks further and further towards comedy fans who like snow. Three or four years ago there were 800 English speakers in Mayrhofen during the festival and every one of them came, this year there will be about 5,500."
And for Mayrhofen's permanent residents, there's also the chance to see huge-name, German-speaking comedians who wouldn't otherwise have reason to pay them a visit: Michael Mittermier is yet another comedian who Maxwell and Brigstocke have lured into the mountains.
With the festival growing on all fronts to, it has moved from its previous March slot to January where more people can be accommodated. The good news for Glasgow-based comedy fans is that this frees Maxwell to perform his latest show Yo Contraire at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Scotland's largest city has been something of a home from home to Maxwell over the last year: "I've been semi-regular on Des Clarke's show Breaking the News."
Yet when we ask to compare Edinburgh, Glasgow and Alpine audiences, he's quick to point out their similarities instead: "Scottish audiences and Alpine audiences all know how to dress appropriately. They are three audiences that know how to turn bad weather into good weather."
The Altitude Comedy Festival runs in Mayrhofen, Austria from 11-15 Jan 2016.
Andrew Maxwell: Yo Contraire plays at Garage, Glasgow, Tue 15 Mar, 7:30pm, £13.