Comedy couple Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown: ‘We don’t know how to function as adults’

Comedians Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown have got a bright idea. They’ve been a couple on and off for 10 years but now have decided to start working together. First with a joint work-in-progress show that they will preview at the Edinburgh festival fringe this summer. Then, if all goes to plan, with a podcast. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a couples’ podcast?” Brown says. “The working title is Before We Break Up Again.”

He’s joking – and there might not be a podcast any time soon. But the prospective name for their shared venture is revealing. “Lots of people go: we just want to have a bit of time for us before we have any children. Well, we’ve never had any time for us,” says Brown. Cave got pregnant with their first child after a one-night stand, before they were even an item. Since then, they have had three more children, broken up twice and got back together again both times. “We started our relationship at level 8, without any of the lessons you learn on level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7,” says Brown. Cave agrees: “We definitely have a different rulebook.”

Their show will discuss their life as a couple, their time as exes and their roles as co-parents: it is a chance to experiment with their dynamic on stage. But the original thought behind it was nothing to do with any shared creative goal. Instead, it’s “because flats in Edinburgh are extortionate and we needed to do an extra show to make enough money”, laughs Brown. “It’s turning out to be one of the most exciting things we’ve ever done.”

Brown and Cave will talk candidly about their changing relationship and their life with their children. But this sort of public sharing is not a new thing for either of them. In 2018, in the midst of their first breakup, both Brown and Cave performed shows in Edinburgh about the other. People would see one show and then, eager to know more about the couple, hurry to book tickets to the other’s. Watching them felt like being privy to something deeply private. But the pair do not think that their uncompromising honesty has damaged their relationship long term. “It’s so fundamental to who we are,” says Brown. “I wouldn’t know how to do anything without talking about my life,” adds Cave. “So if it has been detrimental I’m doomed.”

As well as their joint work-in-progress show, Cave and Brown are also performing individually at the fringe. Cave’s show, An Ecstatic Display , which covers motherhood, monogamy and her potential addiction to giving birth, is her first since the critically acclaimed Sunrise in 2018, in which she opened up about being raped by her tennis coach when she was 15. But, rather than being a traumatic unearthing, she describes her performance of Sunrise as a “hopeful” one. “I like talking about [my experience] because it normalises it,” she says. “It has affected my life, for sure, but it hasn’t defined my life.”

After her brother Ben died in a tragic accident in 2019, Cave thought she may never perform live again. “I had such a brilliant time with my last show … and he died just as it was peaking,” she says. Now, after five “really difficult” years, Cave felt compelled to start doing comedy again. “This is me really trying to move forwards and find joy and silliness in things again.”

Brown’s return to Edinburgh is also significant. His new show, Open Hearted Human Enquiry , comes hot on the heels of what he describes as “a bit of a year”. In 2023, an old video resurfaced of Brown repeatedly using the N-word while performing a set about his mixed-race friend’s use of the term. “I was cancelled, for want of a better phrase,” says Brown. The video was watched more than 250,000 times and attracted widespread criticism including from fellow comedians Nabil Abdulrashid, Kemah Bob and Leila Navabi. Brown then issued an apology on X: “It was recorded in 2015 and years ago I realized my mistake and made every attempt to remove it, not because I was scared of it being found, but because it was wrong. And hurtful … it was stupid, I regret it and have regretted it for a long time.” So far, he’s tried not to “speak about it too much” in public. “It is such a delicate and at the same time chaotic issue.”

The experience will be a big feature of Open Hearted Human Enquiry, however. “The trick of the show will be learning to be conciliatory and fair. I’m an unapologetic comedian who has apologised,” he says. “I desperately want to be fair to everyone … I don’t really feel there has been an examination of what it means to be cancelled.” Has the experience made him think more carefully about what he says on stage? “I mean, I always did consider what I said,” Brown attests. “I think, you know, it is just a wrong judgment, and that’s part of the dance.

“Obviously there are elements to these things that have always been wrong, but the extent of their wrongness does shift given cultural and political context,” Brown says (although in 2015, using this sort of racist terminology would have already been controversial). In 2018, Brown went on to defend his use of the N-word on the No Country for Young Women podcast, saying: “I wanted to do a bit about modern slavery and slavery’s more offensive than the word … ”

He seems regretful about his past now, though he’s hesitant to talk about the personal toll of the experience. He will say that it is “married quite closely to the financial toll”. He considered talking on podcasts or doing a big interview at the time, but decided against it. “It would have been beneficial to me, at least in a financial and perhaps career rehabilitation capacity,” but now he wants to “leave as much to the show” as is possible.Despite all that is hanging on their Edinburgh returns, it will not be a month purely focused on work. For the whole of August, Brown and Cave relocate their entire family to Scotland. “There’s no way I’m sacrificing the summer holiday,” says Cave – whose love for her children almost radiates off her.

Brown is less keen about the family affair: “Jessie feels absolutely hellbent about playing life on difficult mode.”

They discuss potentially hiring some childcare for the first time while at the fringe (“Mad”) and bicker about the possibility of their children introducing them on stage: “I think it would be good for them,” says Cave while Brown shakes his head. How do they feel about their children seeing their shows? “Unfortunately, I think they’ve seen lots of bits of things already,” says Cave. Their children overhearing them rehearse has led to some difficult questions – their eldest once asked Cave, “What is monogamy?” – but the pair do not believe in sheltering their kids.

“I think a lot of things that people think are inappropriate lead to a more broad understanding and a keen sense of emotional development,” says Brown.

Outside comedy, Cave has had success as an author, artist and actor – most notably as Lavender Brown in the Harry Potter film franchise. She calls it a “launch pad” for her subsequent career, but also says she feels sorry for her younger self: “I look like an alien compared to the beautifully styled Hollywood actresses … it was not me.” Fan events and conventions are still part of her life, though: “I love going because you meet people who are passionate.” Yet she describes them as somewhat “eerie”. Due to the controversy around JK Rowling, it is rare that the author is mentioned, she explains. “It’s like she’s been deleted and we’re all there because of her,” Cave says.

There have been ups and downs to get here. But on the afternoon we meet at the Barbican in London, Cave and Brown seem very much a unit. Brown finishes Cave’s sentences, praising her for her “brilliant” performance in the sitcom Trollied: “He likes to mention Trollied,” giggles Cave. They make each other laugh every other minute. “I was always a fan of his,” she gushes. And, it seems, romantically things are on the up. Brown and Cave, who have spent the best part of 10 years living near each other but not officially under one roof, are in the process of relocating to Liverpool. It is a “big life change”, they agree.

So is it actually smooth sailing for the couple these days? “We still don’t know what we’re doing,” admits Cave. “We’re two grown people who have got four children together who have no idea how to function as adults … we just need to get better.”

Jessie Cave: An Ecstatic Display is at the Assembly Roxy: Upstairs, Edinburgh, to 25 August . Alfie Brown: Open Hearted Human Enquiry is at Just the Tonic at the Caves, Edinburgh, to 25 August . Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown Share a Work in Progress is at Just the Tonic at Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, to 25 August.