AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS 
WITH ANIMALS I'VE F*CKED 
by Rob Hayes

Starring Linus Karp


Interview with Linus Karp
by Heather Jeffery

We’ve been following Linus Karp in this show from its first incarnation at Lion and Unicorn Theatre, to King’s Head Theatre and now it’s got a national tour. It has enjoyed tremendous critical success and reached cult status. But what has happened to actor Linus Karp? He comes across as vulnerable - he’s softly spoken, specky, and whiplash thin - but there’s a new confidence.   

Playing the role of Bobby, a lovelorn loser whose relationships with animals are obscenely intimate is definitely for an actor of sterner stuff and Karp is the man for the role. He is big on animal rights, a vegetarian who wonders why people get all hot under the collar at the idea of bestiality and yet quite happily kill animals and eat their flesh. Of course, he’s not condoning bestiality and for him the play is a satire about loneliness and acceptance. It resonates with everyone. 

When he first read the play, his immediate thought was “I need to play this character, it is me.” He certainly sounds and looks the part and Karp says the issues of confidence suffered by Bobby resonate with him. However, twenty-seven-year-old Karp has been playing the role since 2017 and it has evolved. He admits to having had body confidence issues, “everybody does”, he says, but now he seems more comfortable in his own skin. In part this must be something to do with having been a model with Balenciaga. “It always felt like I’m the ugly one” says Karp, “becoming a model was a shock, almost.”  

His younger sister has been with an International German based modelling agency for quite a while and they signed him up as well. “It’s such a new world” says Karp. “I didn’t know what Balenciaga was. When I first got there, I thought ‘oh, this is pretty big’. I worked with them three times.” As an actor he’s posed for pictures in his underwear, but it didn’t embarrass him. “I wasn’t conscious of that because it’s for a character or a project”, he explains.   



This attitude is valuable considering the intimate venues he’s been playing right up close to the audience at Lion and Unicorn theatre, and King’s Head. The scale won’t change for his National tour. Karp has made the decision to take it to intimate venues just 50 -100 seats. He also took the show to Edinburgh festival which is where it got picked up by Adam Spreadbury Maher, the Artistic Director of King’s Head Theatre. 

Karp is happy to do anything on stage. “It’s so liberating, all the things you can’t do in real life you can do on stage. You can show all the sides you can’t show in real life – you get to be horrible, rude and angry - to express those feelings. We all have so many sides that are a part of us, but society, often for the best, won't have us live them. It's freeing to get to express the full range.” He admits than in personal life he’s not so confident.  

He recalls the early days. “Really, the first time I was scared, I thought ‘am I good enough?’ It’s scary to take on all this, but I can still relate a lot to the character and am very at home in it. I am just an awkward person.” This awkwardness was one of the things audiences found so endearing about Karp in the role. It’s not surprising that although He claims he just “kind of fell into it” at the first performance, he continues to grow into the role. “When you get a good reception confidence obviously grows with that” he explains. “There’s a different kind of pressure now because expectations are higher and higher, people are coming because of stars, they expect it to be more outrageous, funnier, their expectations are based on the reviews”. 
“It’s so nice in London with my everyday settled life” he continues, “in London people have a drink afterwards.” He’s had people coming up to him after the show to tell him how much it resonated with them. “Random people saying things I wouldn’t really expect them to say” explains Karp. He’s thrilled “when things like that happen, that this actually meant something to this person”. They share personal stories with him, and people come back to see it again and then connect over twitter if nothing else.  

In fact, Karp has rarely had a bad audience reaction but a couple of times in Edinburgh people walked out as soon as sex with animals is mentioned. “Why choose a ticket for this show?” asks Karp “I'd rather have them leave than keeping their negative energy in the room. They are outraged by a fictional play, a comedy more than anything, when there is so much to be outraged about in the world, plays about war, sexual abuse, things in real life, horrible situations. It’s still like, a very fictional play. It doesn’t endorse bestiality in any way and doesn’t show anything. I think it’s a sweet play rather than shocking and outrageous.” 

“People Kill and eat animals yet bestiality is taboo. Don’t get me wrong I never want bestiality to be an accepted thing. The word or implication effect people so much, but there is so many other things we do to them. I’d argue that killing them is at least as bad.”  

Karp’s Swedish accent has a particular charm. He uses this for his role as Bobby, because, it was right for the role. “Much depends on the project as I work through a script. I can make it British when I want, but this is my voice”. It adds a certain quality to the drama, it’s recognisable but it’s not quite British, it’s a little strange.  

Karp’s favourite scenes in the show tell a tale of their own, he explains. “The cat, is probably the funniest scene, being confident and playful, he tries to be more sexual, but its awkward and that is quite funny.” It seems the Swedish have the same level of understatement as the British, because its hilariously funny. There are two other favourites. “I like the monkey because he likes being angry, he rages a bit and the goat - it’s a long like, job story,” Linus explains. “Bobby says he left his job but he was fired for being awful at his job but when he tells the goat the story, it’s as though he’s the hero … and everyone else is so awful but he’s trying to do the right thing. Obviously, he’s really bad at his job. He works for an animal rights charity and he’s calling people up and his manager hears people have been complaining about him.” The show deals with relationships, loneliness and toxic masculinity. “There is so much about his father son relationship” says Karp, “and how he’s not growing up to be what his dad wanted a man to be”.

The writing is so good because so much is left unsaid and people have to work it out in their heads and draw their own conclusions a lot of the time. “Bobby is so rarely honest” says karp. “He wants to impress; he’s trying to come across as cool and charming but obviously he’s such a sad and lonely looser”.

In the recent runs of the show the last scene changed. “We’ve worked with different director for the last two runs, gone deeper into it, it’s a more emotional and human comedy from the start but it makes it more funny and more uncomfortable at the end, so that it’s not funny anymore more, it’s moving, more sad. I can feel how tense the room is and they’re holding onto every word. On occasion people are in tears at the end. We succeeded in making people laugh, cry and think.”


THE TOUR
OXFORD 24-25 September - Burton Taylor Studio
BRISTOL 30 September - 1 October - Alma Tavern and Theatre 
BIRMINGHAM 4-5 October - Old Joint Stock Theatre 
NEWCASTLE - 8-12 October - Alphabetti Theatre
MANCHESTER - 15-16 October - King's Arms Theatre
BRIGHTON - 25 October - Marlborough Theatre
LONDON - 3-4 November - Bread and Roses Theatre

BOOK TICKETS

One-night stands are awkward. One-night stands with animals are even more awkward.
Rob Hayes’ critically acclaimed one-man tragicomedy is a hilarious and disturbing examination of loneliness. Tackling mental health and toxic masculinity, this production highlights how both can work to undermine loving and healthy social connections, while questioning how we should treat and respect animals in the modern world.

Below: Linus Karp modelling for Balenciaga

@September 2019 London Pub Theatres Magazine Limited
All Rights Reserved
Share by: