Rob Coletta and Craig McKay reflect on their Nest Residency

We are The Killer Show and we have been for some time. A surreal comedy sketch show that formed long ago in the hallowed age of 2007. We began working together while studying at Coventry University before going on to perform various shows at a variety of venues and events. The shows produced were often a mixture between live sketches and filmed material that would often collide with absurd consequences. Our material is often concerned with universal truths with existential stakes. With a large back catalog of shows including Picasso Did It, Mummy, Can you hear a Bin? and Diseased Rainbows we were riding high.

We were on top of the world.

Then we weren’t.

Then it all stopped.

A lengthy hiatus began, induced by the rapidly growing threat of real life. Bills began to collect. Bounties were posted offering payment for our capture. Vicious limericks were being left in public toilets goading us over our fall from grace.

There once was a Killer Show
That existed long, long ago

Now they’re broken and sad
For their jokes are now bad
And they’ve lost any chance to grow.

This wasn’t the worst of it. Street folk would go about graffitiing lewd caricatures of us on the sides of public buildings. One even daubed our likeness soiling ourselves next to Battersea Powerstation. Others even began flash mobs (remember those) in an attempt to convince us that we were part of the ensemble cast of Anything Goes in the West End.

Things were getting out of hand. We decided it was time to disappear. It was time to go. Finally, after a few years of moderate success followed by a decade of being hounded in parks, The Killer Show was finally forgotten.

But it was not the end…

On the first day of the fourth month in the year two thousand and twenty two, our lithe and agile friend Dominic Gareth Watson (DGW for short) directed us to an opportunity that would change our fate forever.

DGW (D for short) told us all about the Nest Residency. Little did we know, this would be the fresh start we had all longed for…

The ninth hour struck on the morning of Monday July the fourth and we found each other outside the doors of the Nest. We embraced in excitement, but it was not simply joy that we felt that morning, but sheer terror as well. Many moons had passed since The Killer Show had stepped into a creative space and we were feeling a tad rusty.

Charlie provided a tour around the building and showed us to our second home for the next two weeks. The Helloland room.

Helloland was a wonderful open room, with a table, chairs, some drawers and a window with a gorgeous view of the canal. The room was mainly white with a yellow feature wall that was lined with cork boards, handy to pin notes to. As we first entered the space we each uttered “Helloland” in a spontaneous and united greeting. After laughing for about three to four hours, we got to work.

Our initial idea was to spend our residency working on the preproduction of an ambitious short film project. In that time we planned to write the script, network to acquire equipment and plan potential shooting locations. In addition to the blog of the experience, the one you are reading right now, we also wished to create a series of vlogs akin our work during the ‘Q’ project by Talking Birds.

It was apparent very early on in the process that the plan was going to change radically.

Before the Residency had even begun we had acquired cameras and microphones. We even had access to lighting and a clacker board. So when it came to our very first day in the Helloland room, we wanted to make filmmaking a scheduled part of each day. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Michael Jonathan Hunter (MJH for short) for his unbridled assistance in allowing us access to the equipment. We would also like to assure MJH (M for short) that we definitely don’t remember any of the deeply disturbing things we saw him doing when he thought we weren’t looking.

The mockumentary style of comedy had been within the heart of The Killer Show from the very beginning, using a highly formal format to explore some deeply silly topics. Interviews delivered to camera had been a structure that we were keen to explore. Every morning of the residency, we spent time composing ten questions each to ask the other before capturing each other’s improvised answer on film. This led to some rather bizarre concepts that we hope will make excellent segments in the finished project. These clips would also make up the backbone of the filmed material we could then edit later in the residency.

Most of our time in the Nest was spent writing. Once we felt comfortable improvising with the cameras and throwing ideas back and forth, it became clear to us that our ambition had swelled beyond our modest means. The more we talked about what we wanted, the more it became clear that we did not want to return to the ‘old’ Killer Show. We wanted the renewal we had spoken of during our initial application to the residency. We wanted to broaden our scope and aim for something that would take a good deal more time and expertise than we had at that given moment. It was this reordering of goals and ideals that led us to The Shadow Factory…

Before we explain a little more about The Shadow Factory, it is important for us to make clear how we arrived there. This brings us to what we found most satisfying and reassuring about our remit within the Nest Residency. Had we been expected to produce a finished project by the end of the two weeks, it is clear to both of us what the result would have been. Anyone witnessing it would have seen a tired and rehashed hack of a double act. A weary beast desperately aware of it’s own looming mortality, it’s long years staggered and spent. Thankfully, the terms of the residency fostered a freedom to explore ideas that excited us. Ideas that made us laugh and cry. Ideas that made us fierce and wild. We had been enchanted with the concept of a ‘Corporate Apocalypse’ and found ourselves deeply entertained and disturbed by a bleak dystopian comedy we had accidentally started writing. The Shadow Factory was alive within us and it was all thanks to us not committing to the comfort zone. Freedom allowed us to explore oppression. It had even inspired us to write a song. A song that we hope will one day top the charts and pave the way for a bold new era in the niche genre of gregorian chanting.

The hit song “DOSSIER!”:

What is a Shadow Factory? That’s the question that’s been in mind since we introduced the idea. Well we’ll give the grounded answer before hurling you into the province of panache. Forgive a direct quote from our faithful friend Wikipedia. You love it. We love it. Let’s not pretend that we don’t all use it.

“British shadow factories were the outcome of the Shadow Scheme, a plan devised in 1935 and developed by the British Government in the buildup to World War II to try to meet the urgent need for more aircraft using technology transfer from the motor industry to implement additional manufacturing capacity.

The term ‘shadow’ was not intended to mean secrecy, but rather the protected environment they would receive by being staffed by all levels of skilled motor industry people alongside (in the shadow of) their own similar motor industry operations.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_shadow_factories

As can be seen, the name is far more evocative than reality. It conjures images of clandestine activity. Cloak and dagger. The truth is far more grounded. It’s that very concept that we decided to play with. Taking a heightened and high concept name and dragging into the territory of the comedically mundane. We wanted to produce a crystal ball only to smash it to see what makes the dry ice inside. Ideas of two workers began to form who toil night and day attempting to complete nonsensical tasks in a desperate bid to reach their ever changing targets. They would have to adhere to “The Break System”, a concept that we both are intimately familiar with from working every day jobs and mindlessly clocking whatever duty or bowel related activity you were currently performing. It would be due to an accident with this system that would summon the Vice President of the Shadow Factory who would bestow the two workers with a great quest. Complete “MODULE 4”. This would be the spark that would ignite a dark and surreal adventure that would meander between the light and darkness while exploring an absurd land of second chances in a bid to escape a Corporate Apocalypse. All lengthy exposition would be delivered courtesy of some old friends from Maverick Mind News Force.

Our last few days in the Helloland room were structured a little differently to how we had spent most of our time. We had outlined the story/narrative of the project, had completed a first draft of most of it and had even filmed ‘blueprint’ scenes so as to keep a visual account of what we wanted to achieve when returning to this project on a larger scale. We concluded our time by taking the cameras out into the surrounding areas of Coventry. When we had first considered our application, we had spoken at great length about how this ‘second chance’ for The Killer Show was a poignant one given the city that has always acted as it’s stalwart backdrop. “Coventry, the city of rebirth with it’s chosen symbol of a Phoenix rising from the ashes.”  It was a comparison we had boldly written when first considering our ideas and it felt correct to present the city’s identity within our work. Made more fitting with our benefactors’ past of creating work around a sense of place and historical locations. We were thoroughly pleased with the shots we managed to capture of Coventry, not just of the recognisable cathedral centric skyline, but of the roads, the canals and corners of communities.

The environment of the Nest as a whole was an incredibly welcoming one. In addition to the previously mentioned creative freedom, the space was always inhabited with various artists also conducting their own residencies. There was almost an unspoken comradery between us and the other residents, knowing we were each there to make things. Lunch times in the shared spaces were a fun and fascinating way to learn what other people were doing and to discover more about the other artists journeys. There were often gleeful exchanges where everyone involved would share how they felt like they were getting away with something. Getting away with doing something that they loved and being supported and paid to do it! We both felt that when our time there came to an end, we had built new connections, made great contacts and fast friends. If the point hasn’t been labored enough we shall reiterate it once more. All of these factors contributed to a domain of comfort and possibility. Within the walls of the Nest, anything could happen and it’s thanks to the Nest Residency and everyone we worked with at Talking Bird’s that The Killer Show is now facing a very bright and very different future.

As we left the space for the final time, we each uttered “Goodbyeland” in a spontaneous and united farewell. After laughing for about three to four hours, we left.

Rob Coletta & Craig McKay

The Killer Show.

European Goldfinch a.k.a Finchy.