They wowed the Edinburgh fringe with whip-smart sketches about Nasa engineers and what their audience were thinking. Now the slacker troupe are back on stage \u2013 but a long way from TV screens<\/p>\n
When a \u201cNew York cult favourite sketch group\u201d (as per the blurb) visits the UK, we may imagine we are getting the next big thing. But by the end of a transatlantic video call to three-quarters of the four-piece Simple Town, I am disabused of such naivety. \u201cWe meet sometimes with UK production companies,\u201d says one of their number, Sam Lanier, \u201cwho see us and think: \u2018These guys could be a great bridge to the American market.\u2019 But what they don\u2019t know is that no one fucks with us in America. All the people who work in development in American comedy already know about us, and they\u2019ve all said \u2018no\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t make a living doing Simple Town at all,\u201d he adds. Reader, don\u2019t let the status of Saturday Night Live \u2013 or recent Netflix hit I Think You Should Leave<\/a> \u2013 fool you: sketch comedy isn\u2019t a golden ticket in the US either. And Simple Town, such lovable debutants at the Edinburgh fringe last summer, are in the same boat as their UK counterparts: holding down day jobs, making films as well as live sketch, just about keeping their team-comedy show on the road. But \u201cwe really believe in it,\u201d says Felipe Di Poi. \u201cWe believe the work we\u2019ve done together is the best work any of us has done, that it\u2019s way bigger than anything we could have made by ourselves.\u201d You can deny them TV gigs, you can stymie their professional development, but \u2013 by all the collaborative gods! \u2013 you can\u2019t keep a good sketch troupe down.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/91f1bd63c564fc0654f2213f82441df63f0075d4\/0_473_2000_1598\/master\/2000.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e425ad9701719a2768e313e887a60948\" "\\"\u2018Four")
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