Welcome back to our Offbeat Spotlight series. Over the next few days we're highlighting all the strange and wonderful things that the Offbeat Festival has to offer. The Offbeat Festival runs from the 9th-15th of September, and is a collaboration between The Old Fire Station, Oxford Playhouse, New Theatre and Gloucester Green Market. In addition to a multitude of shows, there are also workshops, and exhibition, late night events including a poetry slam, comedy scratch night, and listening party, and more.
Here, we catch up with Jack and Absana from Rain Stops Play Productions, the folks behind Live and Peculiar,, a night that blends local comedy, cabaret, art and music into something unique and delightful. After sucessful shows at the Jericho Tavern, they are bringing the peculiarity to the New Theatre bar. Read on for more.
Daily Information: Many thanks for taking the time to talk to us. What, in a nutshell, is Live and Peculiar?
Rain Stops Play: Live and Peculiar is a series of shows in Oxford run by us at Rain Stops Play Productions (Absana Rutherford and Jack McMinn), which showcase local talents in the world of comedy, music, art and more in the overarching format of a good old-fashioned cabaret. We've done three shows in the Jericho Tavern venue and now we're so fortunate to team up with the lovely folks at Offbeat Oxford to put on this brand spanking new version in the New Theatre Piano Bar! We feel like there's nothing like this in Oxford, and we've teamed up with some incredible people over this past year-odd to bring these gigs to life!
DI: Your show brings together artists, musicians and comedians. What inspired you to mix these genres?
RSP: We first met in the student sketch troupe The Oxford Revue and in early 2023 put on a show at the Old Fire Station called The Oxford Revue Strikes Back- that was probably the prototype for Live and Peculiar. Absana was doing a lot of the writing and Jack was directing, and we were keen to get back to the Revue's roots with the show - as essentially a variety show of comedy and music.
When we became an independent thing with Rain Stops Play Productions, we had an early idea for a two-person show based on material we had written in the Revue days, but felt that it didn't really have a unique edge to it. Returning to that variety show idea was a natural step. Oxford has an amazing grassroats comedy and music scene, with an exceptional crop of local talent, so we felt that a show that acted as a showcase for that would be a great thing.
The art aspect came about a little later, purely because the concrete walls in the Jericho Tavern venue reminded Jack of the concrete walls the artist paints on in the Wes Anderson movie The French Dispatch. Mind you, we fully plan on taking the Live and Peculiar concept further in terms of its remit - at the first Live and Peculiar, we had our incredible tech guy and friend-of-the-gig J. Henry read a short story of his. So maybe more of that in the future?
DI: What’s a favorite memory from a previous Live and Peculiar?
RSP: A key aspect of Live and Peculiar is that the acts stay on or around the stage after they perform (like how the couch in the Graham Norton show accumulates celebrities over the course of the programme). This allows performers to bounce off each other organically, making the whole thing feel more cohesive - it also produces a great atmosphere around the performance space, given that the biggest fans of comedy and live music are comedians and musicians.
So the favourite memory of ours is the ending of the very first Live and Peculiar, wherein the stage was populated by us, a stand-up comedian, the headliner Linda who was dressed up as this filthy crone character, and a burlesque act post-strip-tease - all sitting around, quietly watching the closing act play these beautiful songs on a buzuki (a Greek guitar-like instrument).
It was a surreal moment, and people came up to us afterwards saying 'Are you sure you got the running order right?'. To us, it was perfect. The show is called Live and Peculiar! That moment exemplified the thesis of the whole operation.
DI: Who is this ‘perfect for fans of’? If you had to compare the vibes of your show to another piece of media, what would it be?
RSP: Psh, honestly? The Muppet Show. We've even had puppets show up a couple of times!
DI:After Offbeat, what's next for you?
RSP:The biggest Rain Stops Play thing that isn't Live and Peculiar is the Oxford Comedy Archive, which we had the good fortune to be interviewed about by this very publication a while back.
That project - to document the history of comedy in Oxford and make all these rare archive recordings publicly accessable - is still ongoing, and we're working on some exciting new stuff related to that, but we'll stay coy in case it falls through. Show-wise, there will probably be more Live and Peculiars, but we have some more ideas which we'll work out once we have time. In short, follow us on
Instagram for more.
DI: Finally, please describe Live and Peculiar in three words.
RSP: Please get tickets!
Live and Peculiar is on at the New Theatre Piano Bar, on Tue 10th Sep, 6.30pm. For more info and to book tickets, click here.