About
The Company
Gelastic Band Productions brings exciting new comedy to stages in Oxford and London.
Started by Craig Holmes and Andy Murray in 2008, their first project was a sketch show entitled ‘Correctness Gone Mad’. The show sold out five nights at the Burton Taylor Studio Theatre, Oxford, in January 2009 and returned for a special one-night only performance in March 2009 at the Old Fire Station Studio Theatre in Oxford.
They are currently developing a new improvised comedy show with their four-man group, the Gallants. The show debuted in Oxford in October 2009, and has just completed a run at the Oxford Fringe Festival.
Craig Holmes
Craig began his comedy career as a student in the Oxford Imps in January 2005. He has performed in over 80 Imps shows in Oxford. He still performs with them on a regular basis during their term-time shows at the Wheatsheaf. He has performed in Edinburgh with the group in 2005 and 2009. In March 2008 he organised and performed in No Fixed Abode, a 12-hour long improv marathon, and hopes to repeat this event in the near future.
Craig has become increasingly interested in more ambitious improvised comedy shows, and hopes to bring long-form improv to greater prominence in the same way that the Oxford Imps have done with the short-form variety. He started the Gallants with Andy in 2009, as a collective of four improvised comedians looking to develop new shows and formats. He has co-starred in their first project, ‘Byron and Shelley: A Romantics Comedy’ since October 2009 .
Craig co-wrote and starred in ‘Correctness Gone Mad’ in January 2009. He is currently working on new material for his next show. In an ideal world, he would do this for a living (instead, he is an economist).
As well as performing improvised and sketch comedy, Craig ran the Ministry of Mirth for two years, providing a stand-up comedy night for aspiring student and local comedians.
Andy Murray
Andy also began his comedic career in the Oxford Imps, performing in over eighty shows in Oxford between 2005 and 2008, and touring with them to Cambridge, Edinburgh, and the USA. He directed the troupe’s sell-out Edinburgh run in 2008, and still enjoys performing with them occasionally.
He enjoys performing stand-up, performed regularly at the Ministry of Mirth and reached the semi-finals of the ‘So You Think You’re Funny’ stand-up competition in Edinburgh 2007. He has recently been taking a break from stand-up, but looks forward to returning to it before too long.
He has also been involved with several sketch shows, most recently the first Gelastic Band show ‘Correctness Gone Mad’, which he co-wrote and starred in along with Craig. Others have included ‘The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud’ and ‘You’ll Go To Hell For What Your Dirty Mind Is Thinking’, written and directed by James Laurence. While at Oxford, he also wrote for student newspapers and was a founding member of the editorial team for ‘The Oxymoron’, a new satirical publication in Oxford.
He also has made brief forays into journalism, writing for Private Eye and, for one memorable week, The Guardian. Since October 2008 he has been gainfully employed as one of the resident elves for the BBC programme ‘QI’, and enjoys his work immensely.
He is currently acting in a new independent comedy film, ‘I Am A Great Man’, produced by Googly Pictures and shooting until October 2009, with a release in 2010.
