00:00Good morning and good evening. It's lovely to speak to Alf Lyons, who by the wonders of technology is actually at the moment in Melbourne, having just come off stage.
00:09Now, you're heading to Brighton before too long with a wonderful sounding show and one which sounds so intriguing and so refreshing and so exciting.
00:18Horses, in which, well, to put it simply, you pretend you're being a horse for an hour just because you wanted that challenge of something really supremely silly.
00:27Yes, I wanted to do something silly. I wanted to do a show that paid homage to my siblings, to play, to imagination.
00:37And I wanted to do a show that required me to get really good in my physicality of being a horse, because that was one thing I got told I was very good at.
00:46Why horse in particular?
00:48I don't know why. It was the one time at Golière for the two years I was there that Philippe, the teacher, would say the only time you are beautiful is when you are being a horse.
00:57So whatever scene, if I wasn't being good, he would tell me I had to be a horse.
01:02And when I first started doing stand-up, if I got too flustered, I'd turn into a horse for a little bit until I got my routine and my rhythm back.
01:09So it feels nice to return to that childlike purity.
01:14And that's what the show is about, then. It's about playfulness.
01:17And it's a suggestion that we are not nearly playful enough in our lives.
01:22Arguably, yeah. I think every show should have two narratives. There's the A-line and the B-line.
01:27One narrative is that Treacle the Horse is teaching you everything about horses.
01:32And you learn a lot. You learn a lot about horses in the show.
01:35But then you also learn about, I suppose, me through verbatim and mime and some scenes in stand-up.
01:42But you also learn about play because all these scenes are based around play in some capacity.
01:48So obviously in life we start off rather more playful than we end up, don't we?
01:52But what is it that we lose when we lose that playfulness and that you're wanting us to bring back in?
01:57I think it's that openness and engagement with the world around us and that checking in with ourselves.
02:04Because when kids play or when we play, it's often to process big, complex emotions or to just take us out of ourselves and heal and to have fun and be silly.
02:16And I think this is it. What's so fascinating is people think play is very light and silly and frivolous when it's an incredibly important part of every person's life.
02:29And a child who does not play is not a child.
02:33And an adult who doesn't play has lost the child within him, which is like Pablo Nerida said that.
02:37And I think if you see a kid who doesn't play, we know something's wrong.
02:41Absolutely. And we can go back to that. We can go back to a more playful state then.
02:47Yeah. And that matters to me as a performer and as a creative and as someone who loves people.
02:54Brilliant. Well, it sounds a fabulous show. Really lovely to speak to you.
02:57And so super exciting, the fact that I'm sitting in the south of England while you are in Melbourne.
03:02It's bonkers technology, but lovely to speak to you.
