by Aaron Nemo, aka Shitty Mozart

Greetings, esteemed British readers. Or should I say, ‘ello guv'nors? I’m fairly certain I shouldn’t. But that’s the thing – I don’t know for sure. I need help! Can you forgive this potentially insulting opening paragraph and proceed to the subsequent potentially insulting paragraphs? Please enlighten my unworldly American ass/arse.

As I prepare to make not just my Fringe debut, but also my international debut, I find myself spending an inordinate amount of my designated preparatory time bombarding search engines with questions like, ‘Do Brits know who the Milwaukee Bucks are?’ and ‘Do they air those Jesus foot fetish commercials in the UK?’

I visited the UK once. My wife and I spent three days of our honeymoon in London. I did all the classic touristy stuff: visited Buckingham Palace, ate fish and chips, tended to my wife when the fish and chips didn’t sit well with her, asked our Uber driver to pull over, rubbed my wife’s back as she vomited on the sidewalk in front of Westminster Abbey, and tried to keep a handful of pigeons from eating that vomit. You know, the standard London holiday.

But the honeymoon is over. Soon, I’ll be interacting and engaging with audiences who, I’m told, will be largely British. So, please allow me to conduct this brief survey. Do you guys know about The Sphere? Is there enough of a collective fascination in Las Vegas’ weird ball-shaped auditorium for me to explain why it’s the only appropriate venue for a musical I’ve written that takes place entirely inside a testicle? A musical titled Les Jizzérables?

I tend to go off on wild tangents. And the only way an audience can follow me down these nonsensical Side Quest is if our journey starts from a shared, grounded reality. We can’t embark on a road trip to Crazytown (or Mentalbury) if I leave some of the audience behind – and there might be fatalities if I forget to drive on the left side of the road.

That’s why I want to be on the same page as you all. Some of my queries were easily Wikipedia-able. I was relieved to find that The Killer’s Mr Brightside is one of the 15 most downloaded rock tracks ever in the UK. Thank god! A main character of my Fringe show is my sidekick, Mr Brightside, a mechatronic puppet who can only communicate using snippets of Mr Brightside. It would have taken weeks for me to reprogram him as Mr Bohemian Rhapsody.

But not everything is so black-and-white. Sometimes there are shades of gray. Oops, grey. Certain questions require more nuanced answers, and unfortunately, there hasn’t been a British-specific version of ChatGPT developed yet (which would obviously be called ChatGP-Tea).

That’s why I need you, dear reader. Help me out here. Do you wonderful people give a damn about American football? I know the NFL is spending so, so, so much money trying to convince you to like it. Is  it working? Would you want to see an animated sequence I made of Randy Newman getting CTE while performing a halftime show? Separately, in a cartoon song where my dad gets disproportionately angry at women referees, can I depict the official in traditional NFL stripes, or should they be wearing…you know…whatever your football refs wear? (I know it’s not this, but I’m picturing an adorable spectacled bear in a blue duffle coat and red hat holding up a yellow card)

You might be saying, ‘Blimey! Don’t this daft yank ‘ave a Brit mate ‘e could ask ‘bout all this, then?’ Well, demeaning caricature of a British person, the answer is yes! I recently met up for drinks with Billy, my British friend, to discuss a select few jokes that I’m most nervous about. Unfortunately, he could only stay for a couple pints, and it takes me about four or five before I’m emotionally ready to get vulnerable about the things I care deeply about. What am I, British?! Right? Seriously, is that a generally accepted cultural stereotype? I know nothing.

I’ve received no shortage of unsolicited advice about British audiences from my American friends and acquaintances, though. While discussing the premise of my Fringe show with my therapist, she suggested I avoid using the slang term ‘pube’ because it’s not part of the British vernacular. Is that really true, reader? Do you all utter the full phrase ‘pubic hair’ like some sort of forensic analyst observing a crime scene where someone was manslaughtered while manscaping? I have a hunch that my therapist is mistaken. And if she’s wrong about this, maybe she’s wrong about everything else she’s told me. Maybe I don’t actually need to reflect on why I’m sexually aroused by ventriloquist dummies.

Could I trouble you for a favo(u)r? Can you let me know if audiences in Edinburgh will know what I mean by ‘pube’? It’s embarrassingly important. Anyone who’s seen my show knows that pubes play a critical role in the story. Like, as significant as Romeo in Romeo & Juliet. Hmm…Pubes & Juliet…could be another pitch for The Sphere.

Send your feedback to DoYouKnowWhatPubesAre@gmail.com. It’s an email address I’ve created to handle responses like, ‘Yes, you thick colonial, we know what pubes are’ and ‘I can’t wait to go full Jack the Ripper on your arse!’

 Let’s have these hard conversations. Let’s build bridges between our cultures. Let’s please not buy a ticket to my show just to mutilate and disembowel me for slandering your people. I love you all and can’t wait to become best friends/mates.

• Aaron Nemo – aka Shitty Mozart – will be at the Gilded Balloon The Patter Hoose at 11pm during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Published: 27 Jul 2024