Pegabovine is a comedy group, currently based in London and Exeter, with annual forays to the Edinburgh Fringe. They have been recorded for BBC Radio 4's "28 Acts In 28 Minutes", been featured on the BBC at the Edinburgh Fringe website and YouTube channel, and have won two awards at the National Student Drama Festival.

Pegabovine is built around a core of four writer/performers: Luke Kennard, Jenny Sutton, Matthew Henry Johnson and Davis Wateracre. They met whilst at the University of Exeter and set up a fortnightly open forum for comedy sketches in an asbestos-dusted pub basement. Whilst at university, they performed a "greatest hits" package of their sketches at the Exeter Phoenix entitled "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Ernest", and recorded a pilot of a radio sketch show. Shortly after graduation, they created "The Freudian Slip", an episodic comedy play which was selected for the National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough, where it won a Judges' Commendation for Comic Writing and the much-sought-after Festgoers' Prize for most popular play.

In 2004, the company were invited back to the NSDF to record a half-hour radio play, "A Pocketful Of Sap" with producers Lu Kemp and David Chilton.

The company relaunched as Pegabovine in 2005, with three shows - "Songschool" (a one-man show of comic songs), "A Meeting About Laughter: London" (a collection of new sketches), and "The Hundred Years' War" (an hour-long comedy spanning the history of the American Civil War). These were followed early in 2006 by "The Space Race", a comedy of the American and Russian attempts to reach the moon.

"The Slush Pile" was the first Pegabovine Edinburgh Fringe show. Directed by Lily Einhorn, it was performed throughout the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe at the Pleasance Dome. It featured a cast of Johnson, Wateracre, and actresses Frances Moulds and Abby Stobart.

In February 2007, "Eeeny Meeny Miney Mole", a pastiche of John Le Carre Cold War spy fiction, was performed at the Pleasance's London venue. It featured Johnson, Wateracre and Sutton, alongside actors Catriona Ryan, Sam Ball and Lewis Hoare, and was directed by Nina Brazier.

"Coat Of Arms" was Pegabovine's 2007 Edinburgh Fringe show. Returning to the same core writing and acting team that created "The Freudian Slip" in 2003, it was directed by Richard Hurst ("Bill Hicks: Slight Return") and was performed throughout the Fringe at the prestigious Pleasance Courtyard.

 

LUKE KENNARD has published two volumes of poetry - "The Solex Brothers" and "The Harbour Beyond The Movie". He was awarded the Eric Gregory Award for Young Poets, and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Poetry - Best Collection. He is the youngest ever nominee for the Best Collection prize.

 

DAVIS WATERACRE has performed comic songs on the London sketch circuit at Lowdown at the Albany, the Canal Café and the Etcetera Theatre. His song-based pilot "Wateracre Pours Your Heart Out" was long-listed for the BBC Talent scheme "Witty and Twisted" and he has written for BBC7's topical sketch show "Tilt". He guest-starred in the Penny Dreadfuls' show "Aeneas Faversham Returns" at the Paramount Comedy Festival in Brighton. He has appeared in several short films on the Videojug website, and in a short film "Golf Sale" with the great actor and magician Andy Nyman. He appears in Girl & Dean's 2008 show as the voice of Digital Alan.