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Adam Riches: Rich pickings in Coach Coach’s Fringe team

By | Published on Tuesday 11 August 2015

Adam Riches is Coach Coach

Adam Riches is Coach Coach this Festival, keeping a whole team of Fringe types in check each night as “the greatest frickin’ sports movie you ever done saw” unfolds live on stage. Find out who makes up the team as Coach Coach himself files a short report on each of them.

Alright listen up, my name is Coach Coach and I got me about 800 words to describe the spunky bunch o’ ‘kids’ I been getting match-fit for my show in the Pleasance Dome this year. It’s a list, but unlike most lists, mine will not degrade folks by listing them in order of talent, looks or weight of ankle. Instead, my list will be ranked solely in order of how much I like them as people.

Richard Gadd

So let’s start with a guy who goes by the name of RICHARD GADD. Well, at least in this country he does. This man is an exceptional actor, by which I mean I took real exception to all of his acting. Sharing a scene with him is like sharing a hot tub with a barracuda. Cramped and full of flesh-splattered teeth.

Nick hall

NICK HALL is a bona fide powder keg of a performer and that ain’t no lame metaphor. You actually have to set him alight at the top of each show and lock all animals indoors until he exits the stage. Exceptionally cheap and wonderfully sexually mature too, for his or indeed any age.

Ben Target

Ask any actor working today who they feel has the coolest nickname totally ruined by the needless inclusion of a soft ‘G’ and chances are they will answer BEN TARGET. Or Jake Gyllenhaal. Words cannot express how highly I rate this young man, which is why I have given him none to say in the show.

Ben Wilson

BEN WILSON. Just typing the name gives me goosebumps. Not only because he has the stage presence of a poltergeist, but also because he is what those in the know call an ‘apex stage predator’. You don’t share the stage with Ben Wilson. You merely exist downwind and hope he doesn’t catch your scent. American Dentists have been known to hunt him.

Liz Smith

LIZ SMITH is the first of the two known females on my list. Her name roughly translates into Navajo as ‘emotes with her gut’ and I have seen her acting lift audiences up, out of their seats and straight out of the auditorium. Having her in your show all but guarantees Arts Council Funding for reasons that will become instantly clear midway through first rehearsal.

Charles Booth

CHARLES BOOTH. You know what you’re gonna get when you hire Charles Booth. Not only a man whose name suggests he could have been a Highway Serial Killer back in the seventies, but a consistent ten on the ‘how good is his performance’ scale. Unfortunately, my ‘how good is his performance’ scale goes up to 110, so he really does need to start doing better. I don’t damn anyone with faint praise. I faint ‘em with damn praise.

Dan Cook

DANIEL COOK. All you really need to know about Dan Cook is that he is one quarter of defunct sketch group ‘Delete The Banjax’, two of whom now live geographically as far away as they can from Dan somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. Dan’s style matches his hair in that he’s wild, unpredictable and occasionally in your face. It is also his mojo, his calling card and his voiceover agent, although his balls do now handle all commercial enquiries.

Stevie Martin

STEVIE MARTIN. Not to be confused with Steve Martin, which I was when I emailed over an unconditional offer to her management team, who in a bizarre twist of fate turned out to be Dan Cook’s hair again. Has the eyes of a drunk and not in a good way. Time stops still when you’re in the same room as Stevie, largely down to the amount of trace metal in her blood. I truly believe she will end up killing me and not even by accident. But then again, I truly believe she will end up killing us all. She’s that good.

David Elms

DAVID ELMS. Not really a people person, more of a persona peopled, so varied and multiple are the internal personalities he struggles with on an almost daily basis. It’s rare that you find a talent so highly medicated and yet so punctual, but David has range and is not afraid to use it, sometimes in the space of a single sentence. Actors often talk about being present in a scene and David is no different, arriving onstage with a cheery ‘Here I am!’, regardless of context. Needs a haircut too. A full body one.

James Riches

JAMES RICHES. An Actor’s Actor in that he acts at being an Actor. Related to someone on the cast, but until Equity bring in compulsory DNA testing for all supporting artistes I guess we’ll never know who… A keen student of the craft, although some would say it is high time he graduated, James ‘Van Wilder’ Riches is in this play and I can think of no higher compliment than that.

‘Adam Riches Is Coach Coach’ was performed at Pleasance Dome at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Plus check out team member shows…

Liz and Stevie…
‘Massive Dad 2.0: Step Up 2 Massive Dad’ was performed at Pleasance Dome at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

David Elms…
‘David Elms: Mister Boy’ was performed at Pleasance Courtyard at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Charles Booth…
‘Charles Booth: Deer In The Spotlights’ was performed at Just the Tonic at the Mash House at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Nick Hall…
‘Nick Hall: Dodekahedron’ was performed at Underbelly George Square at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Richard Gadd…
‘Richard Gadd: Waiting For Gaddot’ was performed as part of PBH’s Free Fringe Banshee Labyrinth at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Ben Target…
‘Imagine There’s No Ben Target (It’s Easy If You Try)’ was performed at Heroes @ The Hive at Edinburgh Festival 2015.

Photos by David P Scott



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