“I realised it was going to explore the temporary nature of relationships, the glitchy nature of connection and the fleeting and an ever-changing sense of home. The penny dropped that that’s how spiders operate too.”
WHO: Amy Matthews
WHAT: “Amy spins a sparkling web of comedy magic between the two states she finds herself caught between – stability and restlessness. She swings between the unbridled joy in the freedom that everything can change and the crawling anxiety that nothing is certain. This is a show about the thrill of falling and the thud of landing. And after a thud comes a laugh. ‘Drily funny and giddily quirky’ (Scotsman). ‘You’d think she’d been doing this for decades’ (BroadwayBaby.com). Tour support for Alfie Brown, Jess Fostekew and Rachel Fairburn.”
WHERE: Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Tron) – The Tron (Venue 51)
WHEN: 15:00 (60 min)
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Is this your first time to Edinburgh?
I have been lucky enough to be an Edinburgh resident for many years now, so it’s the one month of the year that my work comes to me. There are pros and cons to that of course. It’s great not having to get trains around the country, and I’m very lucky to be able to go back to my actual home after a show for a month. That said, it does mean that for all of August, the city feels like 3am at a house party when you just want people to leave so you can go to bed.
I did my debut hour last year and it’s really nice to return this year with a run of a brand new show. I’ve absolutely loved working on this show. It’s the most personal stand up I’ve ever written, which is a bit scary, but also the most alive a show has felt.
My first ever experience of the Edinburgh Fringe was years ago as a student, where all I could afford for accommodation was a 12-person shared shipping container in an abandoned car park in Gorgie. A Russian man woke everyone up each morning with opera as he staggered about in Y-fronts, and the water only ran hot every few days. It’s nice to be doing the festival a good few years later with this beautiful city as my home, and only my wonderful flatmate to share the space with.
What are the big things you’ve learned since 2022 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?
Oh god. Insert maniacal laugh here. This year has been a big ol’ learning curve in lots of ways.
Fringe specifically, I have taken every Wednesday off this year, to give myself (the illusion of) the end of a working week. I also learned last year that it’s a month that will break you if you don’t have the appropriate support, so I’m entering into this year knowing who my support network and team are, and already feel so much less like I’m hanging by a thread.
So much of writing and performing and just being a stand up is intensely insular. You write it alone, perform it alone, travel to it alone. It’s what makes it great in many ways – complete creative control. The flip side of that is a chronic lack of feeling like you’re part of a team. I think stand ups forget that they can enjoy collaboration. One of the best things about this year’s show for me has been working with my brilliant director, Elf Lyons, whose brain works in the most vibrant, kind and exciting way. Her work is very different from mine but I think that means that her input will be refracted through my voice and style and content in an interesting way.
But if you want to really know the incredibly steep personal learning curve I’ve been on this year, you have to see the show I’m afraid.
Tell us about your show.
My show – I Feel Like I’m Made of Spiders – had a title before it had any firm content really. I had a very eventful and difficult year and in September 2022, a friend asked me how I was feeling and the title was my genuine answer. Then as the show started to take form, I realised it was going to explore the temporary nature of relationships, the glitchy nature of connection and the fleeting and an ever-changing sense of home. The penny dropped that that’s how spiders operate too – they are solitary beings that build intricate and beautiful homes from a substance that they spin from within them. Felt like the perfect metaphor the bring those themes together really. The more I worked on the show, I realised it had three key threads (‘scuse the pun): experiencing dissociation, the end of two relationships and a disconnection from any sense of home or place. All threads that are both intensely delicate and intensely strong – they are spider’s webbing. And the show will be a little web that I spin and then dust away in the corner of The Tron every day.
It’s been a delight to preview and the best bit about it has been new people engaging with my work and seeing themselves in it in a meaningful way. I think the sensation of pendulum-swinging between craving stability / security and adventure / newness is a ubiquitous tension for people.
What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?
Every single time I see David McIver do a set, he has me howling and he is doing a show this year at Banshee Labyrinth with one of my favourite titles this year: “Small Boy Trapped in a Wellness Retreat”. He has some of the most inventive imagery in his work and a delightfully twinkly stage presence. Watching him is like curiously marvelling at a trinket, and I recommend you all come and marvel curiously with me.
Josh Weller is debuting and he’s an absolute talent factory. Perceptively funny, charmingly high-status and an irritatingly good musician. If that’s not enough for you people, I *throws arms in the air*.
And finally, if you want to see the cartoon Daria come to life and then be funny about mind-bending tragedy for an hour, Krystal Evans has got your covered. She’s just dispiritingly talented and deserves a full room everyday to share her wild and hysterically funny lifestory. If it wasn’t in Krystal’s hands, the subject matter would be fit for an Ari Aster film. Instead, she has you giggling through a haunted house ride.
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