Vidya and Maria give you a marble
Soft Play Area’s co-hosts reflect on dance routines for comedy, surprising their acts and the best kinds of bagels.
Vidya Our day begins on a Tuesday. I’ve got a corporate marketing job so normally I’m working nine to five baby!
Maria I used to be a receptionist but I recently got fired. I think they realised that it wasn't a three person job at the reception. We were sort of just passing paper between us and I was their personality hire and I think they realised I was deadweight… but anyway, the day usually begins with us having a call and deciding on the theme.
Vidya Actually we’ve probably already decided on the theme in advance. We usually pick one that’s relevant to the times or something that we find funny and can string along for two hours. Our theme coming up is “Bad Girls”.
Maria Inspired by Jojo Siwa. A horrible piece of art and a gay icon.
Vidya In Soft Play we like to ask people basically the same question every time: what is your childhood fixation? Or like, what did you do as a kid that you thought was normal? And then you grew up and you were like, oh, no, I was wrong. It always brings out the best anecdotes. Also it’s interesting how each show there'll be like a different vibe. It can be quite dark and maybe even tragic and then it can just be so silly. It depends on who starts the show too. Someone has to set the tone.
Maria It’s always a mad dash to get to the venue and get it set up. Even though we live in East London and it should be easy it never is. When we get to the venue, usually we come in and we go “there are not enough chairs!” This happens every single time, we then get into a really friendly altercation about fire safety and about where certain chairs should go or not go from a fire safety perspective. You're always safe from a fire at Soft Play Area. Then we get dressed in the lovely toilet. The most stressful part of the night is that we always leave the dance routine until we arrive on the day. I’m an ex-dancer and as soon as I enter it gets quite scary: it brings out this side of me where I’m shouting “From the top! Play the music! Again! No! Left hand! Right hand!” and we just choreograph it. Vidya’s a really gifted natural dancer so we sort of almost do it naturally now.
Vidya We have a set routine now that we can also pull out any time. We were on holiday in Sicily and there were some middle aged men on the street and they had their music blaring and we just went for it. Soft Play Area has gone international; it’s a cultural exchange! But back to the show… We break off our dance routine practice just as the acts start to arrive and they want to do their tech. We then focus on making sure everyone's happy and comfortable.
Maria We give out marbles to our acts for their free drinks. But we always leave a bit of a gap when we tell them so we just say “here’s your marble….” and say it really mysteriously. And a lot of the time they’re just really grateful to get a marble.
Vidya Before the show we have a beer and then we run away to the loos to make our grand entrance. We have a bit of a ritual where we give each other a pep talk. Although recently we’ve been starting the shows and I haven’t felt nervous and we’re like “oh god we should be nervous!” So we usually tell ourselves like, “everything's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fun and we have trust in our acts.”
Maria My favourite moments in a show are when we kind of sit back and we're watching the acts and chaos is ensuing. Like when one act got twelve people from the audience and they all read the Nativity together on stage in March. It was amazing.
Vidya One recent notable moment was at the last Soft Play Area, and I got the news my sister gave birth, so I had to run out of the show halfway through.
Maria and it meant I was left doing the tech and realised that I'm hopeless. All this time, I’ve been relying on Vidya. Acts would come round and ask “Can I just plug this in?” I'd be like, “I don't know. Maybe?” I also had to suddenly host the show for 10 minutes by myself. So I decided to just pretend that Vidya was still there and did all the dances and pretended to high five her in the gaps in the jokes where she would have spoken.
Vidya After the show we always take a big group picture. People really like the digi-camera we bring and it feels like the audience really becomes part of the show. Afterwards we just keep the music going, go to the bar and everyone has a good time
Maria Although now we usually just go to the 24hr bagel shop down the road. My bagel choice is usually the salami and then I regret it in the uber home.
Vidya Recently for my bagel choice I’ve been going for the samosas.
Maria On the way home I'm exhausted but also buzzing. If I’m in an Uber, I don't know why, but I always feel like a celebrity.
Vidya In terms of advice for other acts - we watch a lot of stand up comedy together and that’s how we find a lot of our acts. We’ve managed to get on a lot of people who we really admire.
Maria We’ve known each other now for almost five years so when we're on stage I wouldn’t say it’s a normal dynamic but it’s pretty much normal. I think a lot of duos rely on there being some sort of conflict or disparaging the other one or bullying. We’re not like that.
You can catch Vidya’s and Maria’s double bill Slug and Slag on 11 May 2024 at the Rosemary Branch Theatre and follow Soft Play Area for their next gig.
Recs! Recs! Recs!
BIG NEWS! WE ARE MAKING OUR LONDON SHOW DATABASE PUBLIC! ⤵⤵
Our London Show Database does its best to gather the shows happening all over the central 14 boroughs of London.
It can be hard finding new and fun shows, so we’ve created this as a one stop shop putting all the shows we can find in one place. Please browse, peruse and enjoy flicking through all the lists we have compiled. 😊
This has taken a lot of work to make public and it’s still a long way from where we want it. If you have any suggestions on how we can make it better please feel free to contact us!
We have also highlighted our shows of the month for every borough but, more on that later. 😉
Click the link below to check it out!⤵
And if you’re stuck on what to do on tonight, why not check out Lorndrette, a pay what you can alternative comedy charity gig!
This map/big show database is an amazing resource I've always wanted to make and I'm so glad you've done it so I don't have to! I will be using it a lot
yesss my favourite slug and slag!