EDINBURGH 2013 - BWW Interviews: Actress and Writer Juliette Burton!

Juliette Burton's show at the Edinburgh Fringe (reviewed here) explores her setting out to achieve every dream that she had when she was a child.

Is this your first Fringe?

No, it is not. I first came to the Fringe in 2005 and I was reviewing shows. Then I came back almost every year since then, sometimes as a punter and sometimes performing in other people's shows. The past two years I've been performing with Lizzie Mace as part of Mace and Burton and last year we did Rom Com Con which got lots of lovely 4* reviews. This is my first year doing a solo show and also my first year at the Gilded Balloon, the past couple of years have been at the free Fringe.

How does it compare doing a solo show to being part of a duo?

It's really different. I have never really been fully in charge before. There's a lot more admin involved, a lot more behind the scenes stuff. I do miss being part of a duo. The other aspect of it is if audience numbers were low you could kind of just look to each other. Me on my own, I just have to have fun with the audience and that's actually a really good learning curve. I've started off the last couple of shows by just telling the audience that they are just the most important people in the world to me right now.

How long have you been working on the research for the show? It looks like a lot of work has been put into it.

Yes, it has, I'm glad you noticed that! Well, I came up with the idea about 20 months ago and then I started putting together some research last June and i'ts basically the only thing that I've been doing since. It has taken a lot of time and it's lovely when people notice how much time has been put into it because even the interviews that you see, I've done all the interviews myself and edited them with the help of my elite team. Even all the animations, I had to work with an animator and I'm really tired. But it has all been worth it - a bit like giving birth...

On the list of things you wanted to be as a child, comedian was never on there.

No, comedian was never one of the things I wanted to be. I don't see myself as a comedian, more of a comedy writer or comedy actress. It's hard to know how to list yourself in the Fringe brochure as well. It's not quite theatre and it would maybe suit spoken word, but that so often gets overlooked in the programme. Maybe this is a call to arms that more comedians do something a bit more theatrical that isn't really theatre.

Why did you decide to address your mental health issues in the show?

I want to address my mental health issues and be open and honest about it in every single conversation I have with people. Its part of who I am and part of my ongoing recovery is honesty and openness. So to do that onstage and make it part of the show could have a positive impact on people and their lives. I thought it would be a good way to turn what I've been through into a positive thing. The fact that it is so much a part of me that when I was coming up with ideas of things I wanted to be as a child, it just felt natural to include that in the show. When I was a teenager the pressures of growing up got too difficult and was too much to handle. My mental health problems really flared up, they started when I was a kid and got really bad when I was a teenager. But I didn't want this show to be an ego trip about my life or about my issues. I wanted it to be a universal story. A lot of people have difficulties growing up and for some people there are mental health problems and for some others it doesn't necessarily go down that darkest of routes.

Also, especially in the midst of a recession where people are losing their jobs left right and centre I wanted to do a show where we address our work and careers and how much we define ourselves through our work. Part of me defining myself, I used to think I'd define myself through my job, and for a long while I defined myself by my illness and I'm now starting to think we are, as people, indefinable. I think we can rediscover who we are every day.

I read somewhere that you suffer from anxiety. How is that affected by doing a run at the Fringe?

It's challenging, but I think a Fringe run for anyone is challenging. I kind of say that for me my mental health problems stem from anxiety. Anxiety is something that I find very difficult to manage and a way I learned from a very early age to manage it is to have certain behaviours that became illnesses that would help me cope with the anxiety. On good days I do manage it in a more positive way but on bad days I don't. The run up to the Fringe has been the most challenging thing in my recovery for a very long time. My body dysmorphia has gotten really awful and my ability to manage my eating disorder has been really challenging, but I wanted to do this and I have never regretted doing the show. It is also giving me a lot of opportunities for growth and giving me an idea of how much I can handle.

What has the audience reaction been like for your show?

It's been lovely, actually, I've been really thrilled. Every time I go to the press office in the Gilded Balloon they're like "your audience tweets are SO positive". They say that it is really positive and really inspiring. People either take from it the whole job thing but then a lot of people take it more from the mental health side. It seems to be that girls are liking it quite a lot: guys as well, but mainly women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, or girls aged 11-20 seem to really love it. That's the time there's a lot of pressure about choosing and defining who you are. The audience reaction has been amazing because it's been so many months of hard work.

Have you had any time to see anything at the festival and do you have any recommendations?

I have seen Doug Segal who is a mind reader and he's amazing. He's not just a mind reader he also teaches someone else to mind read and he's a great showman. Also Casual Violence, who are a very dark sketch troupe, and they're not like belly laughs but they are clever writing and the world they have woven is so dark and so absorbing. I think there's going to be really big things for them.

Tell me about your single and how your T in the Park performance came about.

The single is called Dreamers (When I Grow Up) and it is available on Spotify, Amazon and iTunes. All the proceeds from the online sales up until the end of the Fringe go to Children In Need to share this with other little dreamers. We performed it at T in the Park last month because I told a guy who produces a stage for the festival about the show and he absolutely loved the concept and invited me to perform there. The audience was terrifying, they were so drunk and I thought they were going to pelt me with bottles. But actually they were amazing and they were so up for it and I loved it. It was like a rollercoaster, as soon as I'd done it I wanted to do it again. And on Wednesday 14th August at 6.30pm we're going to do a flash mob which is going to be a dance that anyone can learn. You just have to go to the website and you can learn the dance and it's really simple. It's like a nursery rhyme-inspired dance so it's like heads, shoulders, knees and toes. It's not difficult at all. So you just need to turn up outside the Fringe shop on the Royal Mile at 6.30pm on Wednesday. It's to promote the show and have a laugh as well.

Ticket information for Juliette's show When I Grow Up is available here.

To post a comment, you must register and login.