Tag Archives: EdFringe

EdFringe Talk: Séayoncé: Res-Erection (Seayonce)

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022 by

“You will also see things that will inspire you forever whilst sat in a hot damp cave with asbestos.”

WHO: Seayonce

WHAT: “The baddest b!tch in the spirit world is back, the legendary Ghost Whisperer Séayoncé! What better way to feel alive again than with a big throbbing res-erection? Ghouls just want to have fun… it’s time you did too! A desperate soul haunts the festival and no, not a fringe performer… it’s time for a little exorcism. It’s bound to be an occult classic! Created by Dan Wye, rising queer star on the comedy scene. ‘A sharp edge of wit.’ ***** (TheLGBTQArtsReview.wordpress.com). ‘Queer, overboard and full of vice’ ***** (LondonBoxOffice.co.uk). ‘Favourite show I’ve ever seen… Séayoncé slays’ *****”

WHERE: Assembly Roxy – Upstairs (Venue 139) 

WHEN: 22:00 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

No this is my third Edinburgh fringe because apparently I’m a sadist and like to experience pain. Edinburgh is great, because it is the highest concentration of people with abandonment issues craving attention from strangers. You will also see things that will inspire you forever whilst sat in a hot damp cave with asbestos.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

To remember that the job is simply making people laugh, and that is an enjoyable thing.

Tell us about your show.

My show is a comedy cabaret séance led by the mystic Séayoncé, which I wrote and perform in, accompanied by musical genius Robyn Herfellow and produced by Berk’s Nest. The first adaptation of the show had a two week run at Soho theatre during Halloween and it has changed and evolved massively since touring it around the country. We contact the dead, sing huge ballads and just act like silly queer witches. It is pure joy. It will change your life, you will never feel the same again, you will start stalking me because the withdrawal symptoms will get so intense and end up getting a restraining order after trying to cut my hair whilst I sleep. That’s a promise.

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

Go see these gorgeous hilarious humans, Baby Lame, Siblings, Cat Cohen, Madame Chandelier and there are so ma ny more, basically support the queers! Also I am doing another show Dan Wye Am I Sam Smith at The Flick which you should also definitely see so you don’t die with any regrets.

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EdFringe Talk: It’s Fraser Brown, I’m Afraid

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022 by

“I don’t feel I really got enough critical acclaim last year, so I’m back to throw as much shit at the wall as I can, until some of it sticks.”

WHO: Fraser Brown

WHAT: “Fraser Brown takes the audience on a hilarious and dark analysis of his own anxieties and worries. At only 22, Fraser (hopefully) has the majority of his life ahead of him, but is preoccupied with what’s happened in those first 22 years, for him to become the person who he is today. Unable to let go of the past, Fraser asks himself if he’ll ever be able to move on and forgive the grudges he’s held since his school days. An introspective extrovert, asking what it means to be happy; it’s Fraser Brown, I’m Afraid.”

WHERE: theSpace @ Surgeons Hall – Theatre 3 (Venue 53) 

WHEN: 22:05 (50 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

This is my second year doing stand-up at the Fringe. However, as a by-product of me being lazy and uncreative, it’s almost the exact same show as last year. I don’t feel I really got enough critical acclaim last year, so I’m back to throw as much shit at the wall as I can, until some of it sticks.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

In 2019, I knew a grand total of fuck all. (About doing a fringe show. Shapes, colours and numbers, I could understand. Although I now believe I may know more about all of the above than the fringe society does). I’ve learnt that flyering is exhausting, and so if you guys could just come to my show on your own accord, that’d be great.

Tell us about your show.

I wrote this show, for the same reason any comedian writes their first show: sheer ego. I may endeavor to write something artistic in future, but for now it’s self indulgent drivel. Luckily I’ve managed to trick critics into thinking that it holds some kind of cultural value. But as long as it’s funny, who really gives a fuck? And luckily for my audiences, it is very funny.

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

‘It’s Not Rocket Science’ is probably at the top of my recommendation list. I saw the show last year (having no clue what to expect) and I was blown away. It’s a touching story of a young girl growing up, and making her way through the aerospace engineering industry.

‘2 Mouthed Men’ are a great comedy’s duo who combine sketch comedy with beatboxing, a combination I doubt you’ll find anywhere else. I saw their show the other day, and I’ve been giggling to myself about some of their sketch ever since.

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‘Three Women and Shakespeare’s Will’ (theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, until AUG 20)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding by

“Julia Munrow has one of the brightest smiles in the business, I wonder if they teach that at RADA.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

It’s one of the most analysed documents in English history. It’s a source of fascination and mystery, one of the few tangible links to the life lived by our most celebrated writer. Joan Greening’s script brings together three of Shakespeare’s women – his wife, his lover, and his other lover. They’ve come to grieve in that most passionate and sincere way, by arguing over what’s to happen with the dead guy’s stuff.

There can be few women whose memory is harder done by than Anne Shakespeare, née Hathaway. She has been portrayed as a bumpkin, a conniving seducer manipulating her much younger mark into an unhappy marriage. Sarah Archer’s Anne is nobody’s fool. She’s the iron hand behind the man, the brains of the operation who invested wisely, taking care of the home front while her wordsmith husband did battle to populate the vasty fields of empty paper with mankind’s most magnificent turns of phrase. Sarah’s Anne is the backbone on which sits the family’s head for business. She is not pleased, but neither is she at all amazed, not even in the slightest, when two potential cuckoos land in her well-feathered nest.

Julia Munrow has one of the brightest smiles in the business, I wonder if they teach that at RADA. As the first of the rivals, Anne Whateley, she has, or rather had, much to smile about. Whateley, some scholars argue, was the true love of Shakespeare’s early life. The couple may even have been betrothed or married in some form or another. Our present author picks up on the theme of Whateley having been Shakespeare’s muse, or perhaps even the true author or the works attributed to him. Julia throws out familiar lines from the canon with all the pride of a mother hen leading a healthy brood of chicks about a farmyard.

The biographer John Aubrey, as well as the satirist Samuel Butler, tell us that in his regular travels Shakespeare spent much time at the Crown Tavern in Oxford. This establishment was owned by that city’s mayor, John Davenant. Shakespeare may have been the godfather, perhaps even the biological father, to the future poet laureate, William Davenant, the definite son of Jane, his landlord’s wife. As Jane, Lemon Squeeze Productions’ Creative Director Emma Hopkins, completes the trio. Jane’s ace up her sleeve is that her son William, is possibly the only surviving male heir to the Shakespeares’ fortune. The wrangling that follows is as delightful as the scheming is dastardly. Here is a comic-drama that any master bardian trainspotter will revel in.

There’s definite room for improvement, but of those minor sorts that come with the territory when a play is tested in the unforgiving crucible of EdFringe. The off-handed treatment of Hamnet Shakespeare’s death by the other women is out of character, discordant, and deeply unsympathetic. Grief is grief and none of these individuals is as the snake roll’d in a flowering bank, With shining chequer’d slough, [that] doth sting a child That for the beauty thinks it excellent. (If you’re reading this, Joan, you’re very welcome to this, my pet theory on how Hamnet died as told in the most private lines in Shakespeare.)

What is 100% on target is the dynamic between the three actors. These are women of the world played by women of the stage with the skill, talent, and craft to pull together the many coloured strings of a carefully woven tapestry. The norns beneath Yggdrasil must look and carry themselves in much the same way Sarah, Julia, and Emma snip at one another as well as the man they each loved in their own particular way.

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‘The Wonder Games with Maddie and Greg’ (Underbelly George Square, until AUG 13)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“My youngsters asked if they could recreate an experiment at home and watch more of Maddie and Greg’s videos. Result.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

If you don’t have children under the age of 10 you may never have heard of Maddie and Greg. They are though to the CBeebies generation rockstars. Their popular science videos on YouTube were enormous hits during lockdown and helped inspire a generation of youngsters to stay curious.

We arrived early at the big purple cow to see a queue already snaking off towards the Meadows. Many children (and some adults) in Maddie and Greg t-shirts. There was a genuine hubbub. Maybe even a hullaballoo.

And then Maddie and Greg bounded on stage. They explained the Wonder Games: a series of games – with full audience participation – which would bring science to life.

The duo are exceptionally skilled pros. Working with kids and parents wearing comedy Sou’Westers isn’t easy. Experiments can go wrong.

They make it look easy as they guide the audience through the science. Youngsters cheering, clapping and desperately hoping to be picked. From the first minute to the last they hold their young audience in the palm of their hands. Youngsters nearby shouted out for particular games or experiments they’d tried at home and wanted to see in the flesh (I suppose a bit like those middle aged dads shouting ‘’Do more Beatles’’ stuff when McCartney was playing Glastonbury)

Over the course of four games – all involving the audience, all built around learning about science in a fun way – Maddie and Greg compete with each other. We were resolutely Team Maddie. There’s vortexes, intros to gravity, Irn Bru, and a genuinely hilarious game called Fact Bombs. Our girls – and two friends they bumped into – thought this was hilarious and were properly belly laughing. Maddie was doing her best to corpse Greg but he was just about fly enough to get through it.

It is a highly polished, inventive, enjoyable show. It makes you want to learn more about science. My youngsters asked if they could recreate an experiment at home and watch more of Maddie and Greg’s videos. Result.

 

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‘Pip Utton as Dylan’ (Pleasance Courtyard – Beneath, until AUG 29)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding by

“Only someone as crazy as the man who brings to the Fringe three separate shows at three separate venues would be unhinged enough to come to Scotch-land and promote an American rye.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Full disclosure. I’m a massive Pip Utton fan and have been since I saw him “As Dickens” at EdFringe 2011. Bob Dylan on the other hand, meh not so much, but then I don’t much care for that Hitler chap Pip’s currently playing either. Bob Dylan has been described as the voice of a generation and that generation is queuing round the block. Their combined ages would take us back to a time when Noah was thinking about growing a beard and Keith Richards was qualifying for a seniors’ bus pass.

We enter to find ourselves backstage at Dylan’s last live performance. He’s taking a few questions from the press, chronicling the past with a soft-spoken worldview that is anything but weary. There’s a bottle of Heavens Door Tennessee Bourbon, the whiskey owned and approved by Dylan, which incorporates into the design the gates to Dylan’s home which he welded himself. Only someone as crazy as the man who brings to the Fringe three separate shows at three separate venues would be unhinged enough to come to Scotch-land and promote an American rye.

Starting with Dylan’s whiskey is a smart and stylish opening by the play’s author, the magnificent multi Fringe First-winning John Clancy. The fruits of Dylan’s success as a songwriter have liberated him, materially-speaking, to concentrate on intellectual and spiritual pursuits. We are hearing the voice of an unwilling guru who prefers questions to answers, individuality to conformity. Yet Bob Dylan, we learn, is just as much a carefully curated brand as his spirituous liquor. There’s some great fourth wall smashing over Utton’s choice of attire for the upcoming final performance – should it be the dark or the light black shirt. Folk know what Bob Dylan is supposed to look like and they’re meant to.

Brand Bob Dylan is a single oak tree, grown of over 200 acorns – the memorized folk songs which became his early musical bedrock and turned Robert Allen Zimmerman’s stage persona into a household name. The Dylan on our stage has no desire to become an exhibit, a fossil on display like one of the pictures on those bucket lists of paintings one simply has to see this side of heaven’s door. And so he’s calling time, and what a time it was. A time of war in SouthEast Asia. Social and political discord in the West. Changing fashions and age old problems. What must have it been like to have seen all this from the personal and professional perspective of Bob Dylan?

I come away liking Utton’s soft-spoken, open-minded, big-hearted character. I’d like to buy a couple of t-shirts, or maybe some tea towels with some of John Clancy’s most ringing lines and phrases. But then, of course, they wouldn’t have the impact of Utton’s unique, transcendental delivery. I’m looking at Pip Utton, but I’m seeing Bob Dylan. How does he do that? Maybe we’d all look this good if we had David Calvitto directing us too. Calvitto is an actor’s actor. A firm Fringe favourite and the ideal choice to stage a show that walks so softly while carrying a big stick. Utton performing, Clancy writing, Calvitto directing. It’s like all our EdFringe Christmases have come at once. Just add Guy Masterson and Sir Ian McGandolph selling ice cream in the foyer and you’ve got yourself the perfect theatrical experience.

 

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‘Will Tell and the Big Bad Baron’ (Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose – Doonstairs, until AUG 26)

Posted in *Written Interviews, 5*, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding by

“An August without Theatre Fideri Fidera would be like the Edinburgh Tattoo without bagpipes.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

For our family there’s one theatre company at EdFringe which is officially unmissable. For their 2022 offering the Brighton-based family firm are returning to themes inspired by their Anglo-Swiss heritage. I’m not sure I could have told you before now that the legend of William Tell, the archer famous for his apple-shot, was Swiss or that he used a crossbow. Like our own Robin Hood, Tell is remembered as a freedom fighter, a people’s champion loved by the good feared, by the bad.

We enter to find an upturned soapbox, that symbol of plain-speaking and fearless truth-telling of which ex-PM John Major was so fond. There’s also a sign informing the citizenry that from here on in they are to bow, genuflect, and kowtow to the feathery hat of Bad Baron Boris (I’ve heard it might just have easily been Bad Baron Donald but Boris is a funnier name) which is hanging on one of the sign’s corners. It is a very silly hat. Flanking the soapbox and sign are two stone towers. I spend more than a little time trying to figure out if these are made of real stone or if they are painted. Obviously it’s the latter, but this precision and attention to detail speak quiet volumes about Theatre Fideri Fidera’s approach to their craft.

Over a rachus, occasionally ridiculous, and always entertaining hour we meet young Will who must rescue her father and free the princess from Baron Boris’ castle. Natasha Granger and Jack Faires are reunited with that same spell binding on-stage partnership we saw in ‘Ogg ’n’ Ugg and the World’s First Dogg’. Natasha is the Portland Vase of playacting – so delicate, so intentional, so well defined, classic yet immediate. She has a lovely way of bringing groups of children onto the stage and weaving them into the magic and fun. Daughters 1.0 (7yrs) and 2.0 (4yrs) were brought up to help Will don his suit of armour from a collection of colanders, dustbin lids etc. and (obviously) that was the best bit of the show. Jack Faires is big, bold, and brilliant as both the baron and his beautiful (in her own special way) daughter. It’s a pleasure to boo him with all one’s might.

Daughter 1.0 had this to say in her notebook: “In Will Tell and the big bad baron Will’s Dad was toled (by the baron) to fire a arrow in to an apple on Will’s head. And he was traped and my sister helped her to get dressed. She rode on a donkey Rosina Who was made of a bike. She had a fight with the baron and saved his dauter Who was traped too! And then she found her Dad in a dundion. And afder that they all went home together. I loved it!”

An August without Theatre Fideri Fidera would be like the Edinburgh Tattoo without bagpipes. Their sets and puppetry are second to none. They’ve roared out of lockdown doing what they do best, making children laugh while they think – or should that be think while they laugh?

 

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‘Peppa Pig – My First Concert’ (Assembly Hall, until AUG 21)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2022 by

“Come for Peppa, stay for the music, take with you memories of one of the best wee puppet shows you’ll be seeing in Edinburgh this year since those chaps who do that thing aren’t in town.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Whether you’re a Prime Minister under pressure, or a parent at the end of their tether, you can ALWAYS rely on Peppa Pig to come to the rescue. Years and years ago, in November last year, the soon to be no longer current PM tangentially referenced the British cultural phenomenon as he struggled with speech notes at the CBI. And why not? Since 2004 millions of families in over 180 countries have tuned into the lives of the anthropomorphic cartoon character, her friends, and relations. It’s hard to tell who’s the bigger deal this EdFringe, Peppa Pig or Sir Ian McGandolf.

If they gave out awards to front-of-house staff, this team of red-shirted heroes would take them all. They must have been specially recruited for having the patience of saints. Assembly Hall, where once the Scottish Parliament first remet, is an awkward enough venue without the addition of more buggies and strollers than if Mammas and Pappas had a baby with Mothercare. But for all the logistical nightmares, a mini-orchestral recital in that grand auld space is a dream. And this is first, if not entirely foremost, a classical music concert.

As we take our seats we are serenaded by one of the three violins and the horn – the horn won. The master of ceremonies is Sarah, who’s definitely had her coffee this morning. She introduces the musicians, each dressed for a night on the tiles with Fred and Ginger. They are a youngish bunch, technically – so far as I am any judge – flawless, as well as being engaging (if not natural) performers. A few year’s back ‘Paddington Bear’s First Concert’ (a similar concept) deliberately brought a cast fresh-faced enough that the older children in the audience could identify with them and imagine themselves making a life in music. I’d have liked to have seen more of an effort to get the kids thinking about music as something they might like to do and not simply something they might also like to watch.

The other occupants of the stage require no introduction. They are Peppa, her mummy and daddy, as well as George, her younger brother. The big thing that this show has which the Paddington incarnation did not is the inclusion of the headliners on stage. Peppa and George are superbly designed and beautifully articulated puppets. Mummy and Daddy Pig are full-sized costumes worn from the inside (although, come to think of it, I don’t suppose anyone has ever worn a costume from the outside). Come for Peppa, stay for the music, take with you memories of one of the best wee puppet shows you’ll be seeing in Edinburgh this year since those two chaps who do that thing aren’t in town.

Daughter 1.0 (7yrs) is a moderate to medium Peppa Pig fan. It’s definitely a show she and Daughter 2.0 (4yrs) can compromise on when they haven’t remembered Bluey. Daughter 2.0, the outgoing one, was very much taken with the puppets, especially her favorite George, “I liked the bit where George and Peppa was dancing and jumping up and down.” Daughter 1.0 had this to say in her notebook:

“In peppa pig’s first consert they had an orcestra wich peppa pig called an ‘orcitrala’ the person who intraducsed every one is called “Sarah!” There was costumes for Mummy pig and Daddy pig. As peppa and Gorge there were pepole behind the puppets that made them move and said what they were ment to say. The songs were not reconisable but I thawt they were very interesting. Daddy pig got jam on his fingers! And a bea folued him while he was conducting! It was sooo funny. In the end mummy pig did it. insted and they all did it beatifuly. I loved it!”

The bee was definitely one of my own favourite parts of this funny and engaging insight into the world of concerts and classical music pitched as perfectly as Shane Warne’s first ever delivery at Lord’s. This is a highly accomplished live performance that could teach Sir Ian McGandolf a stage trick or two. You gets your money’s worth and then some. You might even say ‘Peppa Pig – My First Concert’ brings home the bacon.

 

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EdFringe Talk: Sad Book

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022 by

image of event

“As an artist and creator, it can be a very high risk/ high pressure environment, but it’s also where dreams are made.”

WHO: Andrea Walker: Director and Choreographer

WHAT: “‘Stand-out dance of the summer’ (Guardian on 201’s Skin). We all have some sad stuff – maybe you have some right now, as you read this. What makes Michael most sad is thinking about his son Eddie, who died. Through an intimate, visual spectacle that includes dance, storytelling, animation and original music, 201 and Choreographer Andrea Walker bring Michael Rosen’s award-winning book to the stage.”

WHERE: ZOO Southside – Main House (Venue 82) 

WHEN: 18:30 (55 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

No, this will be our fourth time! Our first ever show – “Smother” – premiered at Ed Fringe back in 2015. We brought “Smother” back in 2016, and then followed with our second production – “SKIN” – in 2017. I feel the Fringe is such an incredible place: As an artist and creator, it can be a very high risk/ high pressure environment, but it’s also where dreams are made. I don’t think 201 Dance Company would be here today with a brand new show if we hadn’t risked it all at the festival all those years ago. The Fringe is where we really got noticed, it gave me a career and it gave the company a future.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I feel that because of Covid-19 the way we create work has changed: We were supposed to premiere “Sad Book” – our latest show – back in 2020, so when the pandemic hit we really had to re-think how to create it in a way that was safe for everyone involved. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved, and now that “Sad Book” is finally hitting the stage after a 2 year delay, I feel the company is stronger than it ever was.

Tell us about your show.

“Sad Book” is an adaptation of Michael Rosen’s award-winning book. It tells Michael’s personal story of losing his son, and – simply – the sadness attached to that. Sad is a very complex emotion: It can be destroying, but like Michael shows in his novel, sadness can also be beautiful and melancholic in the way we remember a moment in our life that was wonderful, yet is no longer here. We are honoured that Michael trusted us to adapt such a touching, important work. The show includes a mix of dance, animation and original music. I feel it will touch anyone who’s ever struggled with mental-ill health, or simply struggles to put their sadness into words.

“Sad Book” has been over 5 years in development, and it’s a work that is very meaningful to me. Since 2014, 201 Dance Company’s mission has been to to tell stories that matter. “Sad Book” felt like such a beautiful fit for the company the second I first read it. I directed and choreographed, and we have Patrick Collier as Associate Director, who also produced the show in its development and preview stage. “Sad Book” is now produced by Pip Sayers, and this run at Ed Fringe will be the show’s premiere. “Sad Book” will be available to tour from Autumn 2023 – Spring 2024.

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

Please please please get yourself to Séayoncé: Res-Erection! Honestly one of the funniest shows I have ever seen, and I’ve seen it 4 times now! I don’t wanna spoil it for you…Go in with fresh eyes! It’s created by Dan Wye, who is a wonderful, hilarious queer artist. You can catch Séayoncé at Assembly Roxy (upstairs) from the 3rd to 28th August (no show on the 17th), 10pm.

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EdFringe Talk: The Working Girls of Soho

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022 by

“Living in Soho in the 80’s like saying you were in Berlin between the wars. My life was non-stop carousing, singing and parties, mostly at The French House and The Coach and Horses and clubbing at Kinky Gerlinky and Taboo.”

WHO: Josephine Pembroke

WHAT: “In her fabulous new show The Working Girls of Soho, Josephine Pembroke, creator of Pussies Galore, the infamous club act of the 1990s and darling of the iconic Café de Paris, Heaven and the Hacienda Club, celebrates the West End’s glorious and notorious past. Be introduced to Ma’ Meyrick, the 1920’s Queen of the Night Clubs, the legendary all-female crime syndicate, The Forty Elephants, Aristocratic Annie and Sadistic Cindy in a cabaret of sparkling storytelling, characters, sentimental torch songs and saucy show tunes from the roaring 20s to the funky 70s.”

WHERE: Greenside @ Infirmary Street – Olive Studio (Venue 117) 

WHEN: 18:40 (50 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I arrived drunk in Edinburgh for the festival in 1984, I came on my own on the train and hit the tinnies, a party evolved, this experience was going to be FUN. I lived in Soho at the time and one of my drinking buddies was Robbie Coltrane, so I hung out at his flat in Leith and saw his show. I remember being completely mind blown by Edinburgh, it was just so exciting, all the shows were on the edge. And it all seemed quite simple, you could be just one person, in a theatre, performing and that has always been my aim. A one woman show. So I am beyond thrilled to be performing my show At Edinburgh Festival the biggest arts festival on the globe! Woop bloody woop!

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

After 27 years of a rocky (who’s isn’t)? marriage. It’s all over I am getting divorced I am now totally alone for the first time in my life. The divorce, this insanely different life has shook me up. I needed to get back on stage and tell stories and sing. I sat next to a performer at dinner and he suggested looking at my life, and go from there. Ta Da! An eureka moment, how about my time living in Dean St in Soho in the 80s?

Now was the time to put all those years of experience to good use. I realised that I had all the material to do a show about Soho and its people, but especially about the women who drove the neighbourhood; women who were independent, who had risked being outcasts and weren’t afraid to capitalise on the men with money it attracted. I had lived it and now just needed to piece it together in a format that could work on stage.

My formula is straightforward: I tell stories of the characters who dominated the scene, place them in historical context and add some of the big songs of the period. What do you have? The Working Girls of Soho – Saucy Tales of Notorious Women.

And it feels really good to be on the stage alone, in charge of my destiny once more. Damn the smug marrieds, damn my age, damn the critics. I am at it again, funnier and sexier than ever, I am back, come and see me!

Tell us about your show.

Living in Soho in the 80’s like saying you were in Berlin between the wars. My life was non-stop carousing, singing and parties, mostly at The French House and The Coach and Horses and clubbing at Kinky Gerlinky and Taboo. Soho in the 80s was still seedy and I evoke this in my show. I will tell you about the outlandish, self supporting females who made Soho happen. I talk about the working girls, the whores, the thieves and the nightclub Queens, I sing naughty, funny and moving songs about bad women of loose moral character. What’s not to get excited about? Come and join me for some louche relaxation, for an hour, firmly dedicated to fun. I have performed the show in Soho a few times before Edinburgh and I aim to go global with it!

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

More Than Tracy Turnblad, funny feminist cabaret.
Take it Away, Cherly about a kissing booth.
Meg is playing God at Ed Fringe 22, addiction and mental health.
THE BEATLES WERE A BOY BAND, exploring women’s safety.
BeautifulNothingPlay, against women in online spaces.
Bathroom Confession, confessions in the bathroom.
Cecil Beaton’s Diaries, fabulous diaries of the master of image.

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EdFringe Talk: Josh Pugh: Sausage, Egg, Josh Pugh, Chips and Beans

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2022 by

“I love the festival even though I’ve never objectively had a good one, this is going to be different though.”

WHO: Josh Pugh

WHAT: “Safe everyone. English Comedian of the Year winner and star of Comedy Central Live and Dave’s Hypothetical. Tour support for Joe Lycett and ‘almost certain future star’ (Chortle.co.uk), Josh takes us through the past two years of his life, trying to have a baby and accidently losing Captain Tom’s birthday cards in his own unique and hilarious style. Amassing over three million views on his Twitter videos and regularly headlining the biggest clubs in the country Josh is ready to f*ck shit up this Fringe (as a friend).”

WHERE: Monkey Barrel Comedy – Monkey Barrel 4 (Venue 515) 

WHEN: 14:10 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Pfft do I look like a rookie to you? There’s nothing this city can throw at me that I haven’t seen a thousand times over *draws on cigarette*. Nah, it’s my fourth time, I love the festival even though I’ve never objectively had a good one, this is going to be different though *throws cigarette on the ground and stamps it out*. I think the things that make a great festival are the bars, the food and the shows *notices there’s still some cigarette left so picks it back up*. I’m really looking forward to it.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2019 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

Just that none of it matters so enjoy it. I also learnt that YouTube Yoga videos are largely ineffective if you’re also drinking 8 cans of lager a night.

Tell us about your show.

It’s a stand up show, I wrote it, it’s on at Monkey Barrel which I’m really excited about, previews have gone well and I’ll perform it everywhere after, Coventry, America and, if I can pull it off, Bristol!

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

Sean McLoughlin is amazing, I also love Lou Conran. Red Richardson is sat next to me right now, so I’ll say him, Good Kids, Celya Ab and Eric Rushton for some midland vibes. My guilty pleasure is university A cappella groups.

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