Forest Atmos to Electric Shock: Crybabies’ most iconic sound cues

‘You know that new sound cue you’re looking for? Well listen to this!’

Narrative sketch stalwarts Crybabies return to Soho Theatre with not one but two smash-hit shows back to back. Catch their sci-fi spectacular Bagbeard alongside their Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated World War 2 epic Danger Brigade 7th-12th August. And with over 300 sound cues across the two shows, Michael, Ed and James sat down to discuss their favourites. We’ve included clips so you can listen along too.

Lever

Michael: The sound cue where it all began. I’d been wanting to make something that was based around a lever sound effect years before we started writing narrative sketch comedy shows. So when I walked into James’s room that first night of uni and saw a lever sound effect poster on his wall, I thought… this guy’s alright.

James: Then in our second year, a lever sound effect was playing live on our campus and who did we see moshing along in the front row? Little old Ed Jones.

Ed: I mean… talk about fate.

Vase smash into ghost noise

E: This is the sound cue where we thought we could be onto something.

J: We sat in my room, just taking it in turns playing some of our all-time favourite sound cues.

M: Stuff like ‘door opening’ or ‘explosion’.

E: Jamming, you know?

J: And I’ll be honest, some substances had been consumed.

E: Some beers had been drunk.

J: (Laughter) And I accidentally pressed two sound cues at the same time. Because I was hammered.

M: But I said, hold on a second. Press those two sound cues at the same time again.

Ed: I mean… talk about fate.

Forest atmos

M: The sound cue that paid for this house.

All: (Laughter)

M: We’d never known anything like it and we’ll probably never have another sound cue get so big again. I mean, people were coming up to us on the street pretending they were owls and wind rustling through leaves.

E: But it reached a point where it became a bit of an albatross for us. Kids came to our gigs saying ‘play forest atmos’ and we were like, mate, this sketch is in a bank.

J: We wanted to be known for more than being those guys who had a forest atmos sound cue.

Electric shock

J: For us, electric shock does exactly what we want a sound cue to do. It tells you where you are and what is happening. In this case, you’re somewhere where someone is suffering from an electric shock.

M: You can really hear that early lever influence in there too.

E: Definitely.

M: It’s just a shame that it became synonymous with that cult that committed all those murders in southern California.

Sign creak

E: One of our GFCs.

J: Good fucking cues.

M: Easy now.

J: (Laughter) I’m sorry but I’m not PC.

M: We actually flew to Arizona to record this beautiful old sign our manager had recommended. But when we got the demos back, we were like, this sign creak doesn’t sign anything like a sign creak.

E: Wuh oh.

J: So we ended up recording this old bicycle instead and low and hey presto… creaky sign.

E: Again, it’s a shame that this one was also adopted by a separate cult in southern California. It became like a doctrine or some kind of call to arms thing. For which we are sorry.

M: Well, no, we’re not sorry are we? What did our lawyers say?

E: Yep, sorry means we’re culpable. I can say, we are aware of the ongoing situation and do not condone the actions of either the Shockers or the Laguna Beach Creaker Family.

Plane take off

E: I think it’s important in these kinds of interviews not to shy away from some of our harder sound cues.

M: Yeah, this was actually the last cue we made before… before -

J: We took a little hiatus. But that’s in the past now. And actually whenever I hear this cue, I’m not reminded of the bad times but of where we are now. (Choking up) Sorry, I’m just not PC.

Machine whir

J: This is our first new sound cue in two years. You’d think when you’ve done as many as us, it’d get a bit less scary, but let me tell you… it don’t. In our heads, we’re still those three mates staying up all night listening to a lever being pulled.

M: It’s just great to be making sound cues again after everything has been laid to rest.

E: Absolutely. We’ll be debuting it live at Soho Theatre 7th-12th August. And let’s just say, we MIGHT play a certain atmos sound cue that gets a little foresty.

Crybabies are performing their two shows Danger Brigade and Bagbeard at the Soho Theatre at the same time, from August 7-12th. Tickets here

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