“The Bedfringe team are really supportive and on hand and so on top of everything. And the range of shows on offer is just fantastic. I really think there is something special about it the vibe of the fringe, especially nurturing the arts in the area and I love being a part of it.”

WHO: Nerine Skinner

WHAT: “Debut hour from Funny Women Content Creator 2023 Runner Up and Britain’s Got Talent Semi-Finalist. In 2022, politically unaware Nerine Skinner went viral for her parodies of Prime Minister Liz Truss.

Outlasted in Downing Street by a lettuce, Liz Truss’s political relevance faded and the country moved on. But Nerine didn’t. Through hilarious, original oddball characters, award nominated political parodies and heartfelt storytelling, this is the story of Nerine trying to let go.

Examining how holding onto the past and her unconventional upbringing led to an unhealthy co-dependency with the former Prime Minister.”

WHERE: Quarry Theatre

WHEN: 20 July 2023 @ 18:00 (60mins)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Bedfringe?

This is indeed my first time at Bedfringe and I’m really excited! I have been to Bedford a fair bit and performed in Faulty Towers, The Dining Experience there and had a wonderful time but never as part of the fringe… until now! Everything I’ve heard and seen is great so far. The Bedfringe team are really supportive and on hand and so on top of everything. And the range of shows on offer is just fantastic. I really think there is something special about it the vibe of the fringe, especially nurturing the arts in the area and I love being a part of it. I feel very looked after so I’m sure the audiences will be too!

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2023 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I have been busy making lots of online content, both political and non political and have really been ultra focussed on my comedy career and making my show come to life ahead of Edinburgh Festival in August. I’ve been doing work in progress shows since last August and have been continuously developing the show as much as I can. I feel like I’m leaning many lessons on my way of how to do and not do things and I’m very grateful to the audiences who have sat through many iterations of my shows. They have no idea how much they help me work it all out and I’m so thankful for them for taking the time out to come and watch my silliness, it really means a lot. As do all these fab venues I’ve been able to perform in. I feel like Bedfringe will be really special as it’s a bigger venue for me being in the Theatre and the show will have come such a long way since last August by the time I perform it, so I am very excited!

Tell us about your show.

Back in 2022 I started doing parodies of Liz Truss. It was going really well and then 49 days later everything stopped! I think I was the only one who was benefiting from Liz Truss’ premiership. Since then, whatever I do, I’m compared to Liz Truss and every time I think she has gone, she pops up with a new book, or a launch of a new party. My show explores my co-dependency with her, as well as concerning similarities as I try to move on with my career and life. The show features stand up and heartfelt stories where I look at what else I might be holding onto in my life, as well as songs, silliness, and many characters, both political and non-political, who help me throughout the show to exorcise her from my life. But can I let go?

What should your audience see at Bedfringe after they’ve seen your show?

Ah there are so many great acts at Bedfringe! I would love to see Lubna Kerr’s show “Chatterbox” because I’ve not only heard great things but the story of her growing up and being labelled a certain way sounds really touching, relatable and I’m sure very humorous too and I love it when you feel so connected to a piece of work for lots of different reasons. I’ve also seen and worked with The Falsetto Socks,who are just so funny, silly and topical and they never disappoint. It will be great to see their show “Superheroes”. I’ve also always wanted to see “Paul Foot: Dissolve”. He is such a renowned comedian and so off the wall and I would love to see someone I’ve admired so much doing their thing up on the same stage. I would also really like to see “Raul Kohli: Raul Britannia” as I’ve heard amazing things about him and as he does a lot of political comedy, it will be great to see his take on current affairs.

“The world needs to remember what a total chuffing mess British politics got (and gets) itself into.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Outstanding)

Nerine Skinner is a comedian (a very good one) with a problem. The character she has developed with skill, close observation, and an elegant genius for grotesque satire is politically speaking (for now) dead as Marley’s ghost with a pocket full of doornails.

I predict that the Prime Ministerial career of Liz Truss will have more words written about it than the Cameron, May, Johnson, and Sunak premierships combined. True, 49 days in office did not generate a lot of data points. True, a lettuce did better at staying around. Also true, our shortest-serving First Lord of the Treasury is subject to the same love-it-or loathe-it opinions of our first and longest-serving Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. The Truss Premiership contains all the great drama of great political history espresso-ed into a potent little beverage. The Truss premiership illuminates much about the surrounding themes of her longer-lasting immediate predecessors and successor.

But, and this is Skinner’s Predicament™, satire shares a shelf life with guests and fish. Truss is yesterday’s news which the auld wisdom and economic modelling of the auld fashioned press tells us is of zero interest – presumably because it’s easier to sell sensationalism to a public that keeps forgetting what just happened.

Which is why I hope Skinner’s version of Liz Truss will be alive and kicking (in some form) well into the future. The world needs to remember what a total chuffing mess British politics got (and gets) itself into. This show lampoons the everyday familiar banality of ultra-low-grade pride before an almighty, utterly predictable fall.

This is a very, very funny show with a very, very relatable premise. It’s about a totally unqualified individual thrust by a bizarre cocktail of events into a role for which they were emotionally, intellectually, and professionally unqualified. There are few finer real-world demonstrations of The Peter Principle, that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence.” Over and over again, Skinner lands punch after punch, pummelling the puffery and pretensions of her subject with brutally observed candour.

There was nothing hidden about the problems with Liz Truss, before or during her Premiership. The folks who made Liz Truss possible are the tailors in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes. Nerine Skinner is the little boy daring to shout, “Der Kaiser ist nacht!” What happens to that voice at the end of the fairytale has the potential to tell us much about the real world.

Gilray’s art remains beautiful even if we struggle to recall the context. Bremner’s comic crafting remains delightful even if the personalities he impersonated have faded from memory. Nerine Skinner will go on to produce successful new creations about new ultimately unsuccessful politicians. Let’s hope they are as sharp and as stinging as her totemicoclastic takedown of Liz Truss, the final premier of a reign that began with actual Churchill. For now, get your Thatcher-inspired faux fur coats on and go see this!

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