Perrier Award winning comic LAURA SOLON is to return to Edinburgh with her first live show since her 2005 award winning debut. The acclaimed writer and performer of Talking and Not Talking (BBC Radio 4), Laura, Ben and Him (ITV2) and Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder (ITV1), who features in Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul (BBC ONE), is back with her brand new multi-character narrative comedy Rabbit Faced Story Soup.

Rabbit Faced Story Soup is set in the world of Black Publishing. With the company in trouble and the star author missing, publisher and heroine Diana Lewis embarks on a quest to save her career. Along the way she is helped and hindered by various characters, including: her boss, the superwoman Marcie Blitzer; millionaire chairman of Black Publishing Sir Michael Black, “black by name, lightly suntanned by nature”, who delivers the news that the company has gone “tits down” (“tits up would suggest a hopeful sense of buoyancy”); AWOL author, Harriet, famed for her phenomenally successful ‘World Of Woman’ novel (described by The Australian Herald as “the one book that makes me want to put out my barbecue and learn to read”); and call centre worker and Harriet G Scott Superfan, Gwyneth.

We also meet Phillippa, a feminist sci-fi writer (“waiting for his blind date Steve sat at the bar like men do, brackets selfishly and without doing any washing-up”); experimental French author Didier Auberge, whose “latest work is an anti-novel with its 6000 pages long with no punctuation and halfway through it advises the reader to take their own life”; children’s author Carole Price whose long awaited sequel to her bestselling book ‘Mice in the Wood One’ is a disaster; and Kathleen Harris, Harriet’s old co-worker from the local council, “Harriet and I were colleagues which is an officey way of saying ‘not friends’”.

LAURA SOLON won the Perrier Award with her debut solo show in 2005, and has since established herself as one of the fastest rising writers and performers working in comedy. Series three of her BBC Radio 4 series, Talking and Not Talking, is to be broadcast later this year, whilst her television work has seen her perform prominently alongside the UK’s leading comic talents such as HARRY ENFIELD, JESSICA HYNES, AL MURRAY, DAVID TENNANT and PAUL WHITEHOUSE. She is currently developing a new scripted comedy for BBC Radio 4 which will pilot later this year. She will transfer Rabbit Faced Story Soup to the Soho Theatre for a two-week run between 6th - 17th October.

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“Her magnetism comes from her ability to physically change herself on stage, her taut, controlled performance and most importantly her high-quality lines.”
Julian Hall, The Independent

LISTINGS INFORMATION
Venue: Assembly Rooms - Wildman Rooms
Date: 6th - 30th August 2009
Time: 17:05
Box Office: 0131 623 3030

For more information and press tickets, please contact: Jo Cross, Ben Nolan, Jenny Stewart or Dan Lloyd. Tel: 020 7598 7222 [London office]. Email: joc@avalonuk.com, benn@avalonuk.com, jenny.stewart@avalonuk.com or danl@avalonuk.com

WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT:

…Laura Solon’s 2005 Perrier Award winning show

"Solon's twisted imagination means that the show is jam-packed with delights. Her performance(s) are expertly differentiated… And there are countless killer one-liners."
The Guardian

"A strikingly original, darkly funny series of monologues… Studded with finely wrought one liners, this is the year's most impressive debut."
The Times


…Talking and Not Talking

"Seemingly poised for stardom for creating instantly memorable and grotesque comic characters, one might dub Laura Solon the next Catherine Tate. What makes her different is that she specialises in brilliantly written verbal comedy, displayed at length in this latest Radio 4 series. Almost every sketch is a showcase for ultra-deft characterisation and surprising gags. There's a real sense of superior craftsmanship, making her seem more like a successor to the tradition of Fry & Laurie than anyone more contemporary. Her various alter egos allow Solon to mix it up a bit, with some characters offering delicate observational comedy (check out the divorcee entrepreneur perched forever on the verge of tears) and others diving headlong into the surreal (her demented Teutonic heiress, forever plotting coups in the company of a china model lion, is a blindingly original highpoint). Following her memorable cameos in Harry And Paul, Solon's surely going to be bringing this stuff to TV soon; this release shows exactly why she deserves it."
James Kettle, ‘The Guide’ The Guardian

"Laura Solon has a streak of genuine originality…The joke lies partly in the speed of delivery - Solon rarely pauses; and she is one of the few comics around prepared to use silly voices to get a laugh…I wonder whether radio light entertainment is the right place for Solon: she’s a little too clever and a little too dark. I don’t suppose they’d let her present the Today programme?"
Robert Hanks, ‘The Week in Radio’ The Independent

"Very interesting it is too: the scripts are dark, sharp and entirely devoid of punchlines, but still manage to contain more laughs than most comedy half-hours."
Lisa Mullen, Time Out

"If you’re in search of a laugh on Radio 4, then Talking and Not Talking, Laura Solon’s new comedy sketch show, is - whisper it - rather good. A bit Catherine Tate, a bit Green Wing. You know: funny."
Miranda Sawyer, The Observer

"The 2005 Perrier Award-winning stand-up comes to radio with six episodes of the off-kilter observations and surreal sketches that make her the sort of stand-up who wins comedy awards. Talking and Not Talking is very clever, very well put-together and slightly soulless; it is Yuppie comedy. It lives in a converted loft in the late Eighties. Nothing wrong with that, of course, particularly when it is capable of coming up with lines like these, which fit together like something terribly expensive from Scandinavia: “I thought my father was going to live for ever, because that’s what he told me. But no, that wasn’t my father, that was the theme tune to Fame. I loved that film, it was like a father to me.”"
Chris Campling, ‘T2’ The Times

"Is she the new Catherine Tate? Alan Bennett? Victoria Wood? Nobody seems sure. But one thing is certain: Perrier Award-winning comedian Laura Solon is destined for great things. In her new sketch show Talking and Not Talking she lays into the smug moneyed middle classes with laser-guided precision. She’s a remarkable talent; BBC2 undoubtedly beckons."
Maxton Walker, ‘G2’ The Guardian


…Laura, Ben and Him

"Good performances, particularly from Solon who has a knack for characters."
Phelim O’Neill, ‘Guide’ The Guardian

"This rapid-fire sketch delivers the comic goods. Laura Solon, Ben Willbond and Him - aka Marek Larwood - dish up a refreshingly daft election of sketches from a smart running gag about Narnia to a sly spoof of all those ambulance-chasing lawyer ads you get on daytime TV. Mitchell and Webb should be made to watch and take notes."
Ceri Thomas, Evening Standard / London Lite

"Whatever else these funny, well-observed sketches are about their subject is the middle class, its faults and its prejudices. There is the horsey woman who keeps a pony in the office, the clown who is suing over health-and-safety issues and the character with Narnia in his wardrobe (when the council would not even give him permission for a conservatory). It is written by Marek Larwood and the Perrier Award-winners Laura Solon and Ben Willbond. Their pedigree shows."
Sally Kinnes, ‘Culture’ The Sunday Times

"This brand-new sketch show is written and performed by hot new comedy stars Laura Solon, Ben Willbond and Marek Larwood. With characters including Jill and her office pony, and a clown who sues for work-related accidents, this is jam-packed with silliness."
Belinda Wanis, ‘Hot TV’ Daily Star

"If you find the number of sketch shows on TV off-putting, don’t dismiss this one without seeing it. Ex-Perrier Award winner Laura Solon is the best of the bunch of Laura, Ben and Him, playing a dainty Jane Austen type who turns nasty when a snooty gent mistakenly gives her a bloody nose…"
Olly Grant, TV Times

"It’s obvious why this trio have a clutch of awards between them, as the combination of funny looking characters and silly humour is a definite winner. Laughter lines in episode one come from the clown who points at his red nose and says ‘from drinking’, the tradesman who remarks ‘the best thing about being a bed-wetter is that I don’t find it hard to get up in the morning’, and the man who has made a ‘slag trap’ from a cardboard box filled with ciggies and a bottle of Hooch. It’s naughty but nice."
Adrian Lobb, ‘We Love Telly’ Daily Mirror

AVALON PROMOTIONS

Avalon Promotions Limited is one of the leading promoters of live comedy in the UK. Productions include: NEWMAN & BADDIEL in the first comedy show ever to be staged at Wembley Arena; FRANK SKINNER’s record-breaking performance to an audience of 6,000 at the Battersea Power Station; Jerry Springer - The Opera at the National Theatre, at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End, on national tour and at New York’s Carnegie Hall; HARRY HILL at the Palace and Dominion Theatres in London; and Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure at the Sydney Opera House, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on national tour and at the Village Theatre, New York (nominated for Drama Desk Award 2004).

The last 12 months has seen Avalon Promotions: present multi-award winning comics JENNY ECLAIR, RICHARD HERRING, RUSSELL HOWARD and FRANK SKINNER on sell-out runs; produce AL MURRAY, THE PUB LANDLORD live at the O2, and RUSSELL HOWARD at Wembley Arena; introduce some of the fastest-rising stars in comedy such as RUSSELL KANE, KRISTEN SCHAAL & KURT BRAUNOHLER and ISY SUTTIE; produce stage shows, such as Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret and Grumpy Old Women Live, which has toured the UK three times and performed a highly successful run in Australia; and present 23 acts at the Edinburgh Festival, where it has promoted a total of five Perrier Award winners and 17 Perrier Award/if.comedy Award nominees in just 20 years.