Birthday Girls on their Edinburgh Fringe return

Two years ago Birthday Girls performed in one of the most notorious venues at the Fringe. "When we first saw it," says Rose Johnson, "we were all, 'Oh shit.'"

Doors essential for access, emblazoned with 'DO NOT ENTER' signs; exposed wiring; no lights in the stairwell; and, as Beattie Edmondson remembers with mock indignity, "having to go to the toilet in that hay bale bar every night" were just a few examples of a lack of Health and Safety gone mad.

Not that it mattered, the unstoppable Party Vibes became a word-of-mouth hit.

Last year, they returned to reprise the show for a short run, but became ensnared by the spectacular fall-out between venue operators – the fiasco known as Cowgateheadgate. Birthday Girls were turfed out of the cursed building they had come to think of, and made feel like, a home. But they were also one of the lucky ones; managing to land at Pleasance's quickly organised afterhours rescue operation for some of the displaced acts. This year, they're back in the Courtyard with an all-new show – and Sh!t Hot Party Legends has a decidedly late-night vibe. 

"We're trying to get across the idea that we're on a night out and the audience are coming with us," says Johnson. Edmondson adds, "And we do need a bit more tech for that, like... lights."

Performing in the evening is important for this group – something they learned the hard way the last time they took a brand new work to Pleasance. Formerly part of mega-ensemble Lady Garden, when this group disbanded the remaining trio reformed as Birthday Girls, but perhaps underestimated they were now an entirely new entity. Subsequently, their debut as in 2013 was a somewhat bruising experience: "There was a bit where Beattie was talking about giving blow jobs to dogs," says Johnson. "Afterwards we thought, 'It's no wonder that didn't fly at 6pm.'"

"Because we'd become Birthday Girls not that long before," says Camille Ucan, "we didn't have that long to establish ourselves working as a three – and we had a 'narrative' for the first time ever." The show title alone – 2053 – seemed to force the group to stick with a futuristic concept long after they realised the idea wasn't suiting their style.

"It was important for us to be able to fail," says Johnson. "Looking back, you think, 'Well of course, we'd only just formed, we didn't know what our dynamic was.' We were chasing our tails trying to catch up with ourselves. But it allowed us to strip it right back and really think about what we wanted to do. To go from 2053 to Party Vibes the next year – a show we're really proud of – was amazing."

That room to stumble, and find their feet, is something they think is missing from current TV commissioning. As Johnson says: "We're surrounded by this amazing community of exciting young performers, but very few of them get thrust in the mainstream. I don't know what the channels think is going to happen with this missing generation. I just keep thinking, 'Are you going to keep making Are You Being Served?' We seem to have lost a culture where channels take on acts and help develop them."

With UK TV comedy commissioning in a risk-averse phase, the work of other creative outlets in the UK is helping plug the gap. This year, Birthday Girls released a mockumentary – Birthday Girls on Tour – through Turtle Canyon, the Pinewood based comedy producers with a growing reputation for the quality of their online content.

"My dream is for that to be what we make and put on telly," says Edmondson, and Ucan adds: "We like it because we look pathetic in it, the reality of traipsing round the country for no money doing sketch comedy."

Edmondson tells us: "We're doing an Edinburgh one."

Given a recent documentary released on Netflix – Hannibal Takes Edinburgh – captured only a bizarro Fringe experience of sunny climbs up Arthur's Seat, a record of a 'normal' August would make a nice alternative. If previous years are anything to go by, there might be plenty of encounters to choose from – even without Birthday Girls' Cowgatehead adventures. Recalling an early visit with "about 50" drama students sharing two flats, Edmondson says: "One of the flats had scabies," adding with a hint of nostalgia: "We all got really quite ill."

Still, at least mites burrowing under the skin doesn't make anyone smell. "We lived above a chippy," says Ucan, also remembering accommodation past, "and the smell came straight into our bathroom's extractor fan, so every time we went for a shower we'd come out smelling of chip fat.

"We stayed there three years in a row."

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Birthday Girls: Sh!t Hot Party Legends, Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), 3-28 Aug, 9.45pm, £6-10.
Rose Johnson directs Suzi Ruffell: Common, Just the Tonic at The Mash House (The Snifter Room), 4-28 Aug (not 15), 8.20pm, £5-6/PWYW.
Massive Lazy Girls, Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), 24-28 Aug, 11.30pm, £8-10.