“People are open to debate, and perhaps seeing things in a new light, if they can be taken on a ride into the darkness with hope and humility and laughter.”
WHO: St John McKay
WHAT: “Reenact the criminal trial of a real-life feminist activist martyr… but as a television gameshow. With talking monkeys. With you as the jury deciding her fate… WTF? It’s different every time but forever sad, nuts, tragic, absurd, heavy, bananas and intense. Daring to ask – does prison really make us safer? *All ticket sales go to criminal justice nonprofits.”
WHERE: Muse at Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41)
WHEN: 14:30 (60 min)
MORE: Click Here!
Is this your first time to Edinburgh?
Though I’ve performed at Adelaide and Melbourne and Reykjavik and New York festivals, this is my first time at the big kahuna burger (also my first time in Scotland, where I’ve always dreamed of coming!). Edinburgh Fringe is the pinnacle of the world’s fringe festivals, and the city truly embraces art like no city does, becoming transformed into a world of creativity and expression and joy and thought and surprise. Artists come together with audiences, artists come together with artists, audience members come together with audience members, in the streets and the theatres and the pubs, surrounded by jaw dropping architectural reminders of our connection to the past — the streets, the buildings, the land. An inspirational time like no other is this Edinburgh festival. The dream place for anyone who believes in art not merely as entertainment, but as a life necessity.
What are the big things you’ve learned since 2024 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?
That the world’s pretty crazy right now! But one thing I’ve realised is, amongst all the horror we are bombarded with, what I have to remember is that every second of every day everywhere on this planet there are millions of acts of kindness, and love, and generosity, and compassion, and sacrifice, it’s just that those acts don’t make the news. With all my work over two decades now, as with this current show at the fringe, I admit I have a preoccupation with the heavy subjects — trauma, inequality, gender, unquestioning obedience, domestic abuse, and now, the criminal justice system. But the lesson I’ve found is that people are open to debate, and perhaps seeing things in a new light, if they can be taken on a ride into the darkness with hope and humility and laughter. I suppose the mantra I relearn over and over and over whilst being fortunate enough to keep creating is:
‘There but for the grace of god, go I.’
Tell us about your show.
The show I have written directed and will perform at Edinburgh, ‘A Monkey Trial: the gameshow OR The True and Tragic Passion of Pauline Campbell’ is a crazy, complicated, confrontational fish with many heads (hence the crazy complicated name!). In one respect, it’s a live documentary about a woman named Pauline Campbell, an obscure feminist activist hero from Northern England who, as a fifty five year old retiree, had her teenage daughter die in prison, and then sacrificed everything for a tireless and constant campaign against the barbarity of the criminal justice system — and then was brought before a judge, her day in court being what I ‘recreate’ on stage. I found out about Pauline five years ago while researching another prison-themed piece I had at Reykjavik Fringe, was immediately hooked, and have been working with her legacy ever since (I performed it at Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe). In another respect, it’s a solo show with the mission of exposing the hidden horrors and consequences of this punishment and vengeance society we take for granted as a necessity — we ‘have’ to have humans in cages to keep us safe, right? … Right? It is a personal obsession, as my own mother was incarcerated for six months when I was a child and, though she is the closest person in my life, she refuses to ever talk about that experience (I may have also spent a day or two or three in a cell myself, across five countries, so my knowledge is not only through others’) … And then the show is a comical farce, as I have turned the trial into a literal TV gameshow, where the other characters I banter and argue and interrogate and get mocked by — the judge, the prosecutor, the witnesses — are talking chimpanzees projected on screen (pieced together from old PG Tips commercials)! I fight to win the ‘game show’, this ‘monkey trial’, the absurdity reflecting the absurdity of the system itself. Finally, every time it is an improvisational conversation with the audience, ‘the jury’, as, in the end, it is they who decides the fate of I, the contestant. Do I win (‘Not guilty!’), or lose (‘Guilty’)? Every trial/game show it is their choice, and the interaction makes every performance fresh and invigorating and, depending on who are sitting in those seats, a very different kettle of fish.
What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?
Gravity and Other Myths — Australians! Pushing the boundaries! Unreal!
Ten Things I Hate About Me — Hope! Raw chickens! Funnily moving!
Spy Movie: The Play! — Blonde Bond! Villains! Outrageousness!
Dystopia: The Rock Opera — Masks! Satire! Blistering rock!
Streets Paved with Gold — Solo! Poignant! Emotional depth!
It Just So Happened — Comedy! History! 3x Top 10 Funniest Jokes of the Fringe!
Mythos: Ragnarök — Thor! Loki! Wrestling!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Titania! Hermia! Puck!
Quartet (from Dangerous Liaisons)! — Love! Sex! Power!
The Gummy Bears’ Great War — Existential tragicomedy about our search for meaning!
What If They Ate the Baby? — Fringe winners keep things under the table!
LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ? FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! OR SIGN UP TO OUR MAILING LIST!
INTERESTED IN BEING INTERVIEWED TOO? CLICK HERE!
Get Your Coats On 