EDINBURGH 2014 - BWW Interviews: DIVALLUSION

In the midst of their Edinburgh Fringe festival run of Divallusion; cabaret stars Christina Bianco and Velma Celli speak to BWW:UK about their experience so far.

How are you settling in in Edinburgh?

Christina Bianco: Absolutely loving it and dying to explore the city. Right now I'm running past things saying, "Oh look, how beautiful!" and taking a blurry picture and continuing to run. But it's great and already we've had the chance to interact in the dressing room with really wonderful creative talent so even though I haven't had the chance to get out yet I've still started to experience what I came here to experience.

Velma Celli: This is a fringe debut for both of us and people said, "Oh, it's crazy and it'll be the most crazy month, a whirlwind, and you'll get back to London and be like, what the hell just happened?" And I was like, no, no, we're used to being busy, but really it is unbelievable. But very exciting. There's so much energy everywhere you go and it is just amazing.

What has audience response been like so far?

Christina: Fantastic. Some audiences have been more rowdy than others but the response has been phenomenal. People keep saying they want to come back. We're still figuring things out and getting into the swing of it and every audience is so different which is what is so great about it. At the fringe you really don't know who's in the audience - there could be a lot of people who barely speak English but want to hear the music so it is very hit or miss.

Velma: I think the best thing about it is the variety with the audience. For example yesterday jokes landed that didn't land on the audience before and I think it was because yesterday there were a group of performing arts students and they were laughing at Christina's Let It Go and they engaged more with my Jessie J because that's their generation. it's very clear to us what works and after the first show we were back to the drawing board.

Christina: The first two audiences we had were a little older than we expected. I guess I assumed that coming to the fringe it would be a younger crowd. I thought a lot of people would maybe come because they had seen Ian in RENT or that they would come because they saw me on the Paul O'Grady Show but we don't just do that.

Velma: There's very little musical theatre actually in it.

Christina: Yes, because we found that it's alienating.

Velma: But because we have that background and that training we can take a pop song and take it on a journey that perhaps you wouldn't have normally get with a pop song.

Christina: What I really love about our show is that there's something for everyone. We're so grateful for the response and we just found out that our next two shows have sold out. We don't take it for granted.

What have you been doing with your downtime?

Christina: What downtime? (laughs)

Velma: My favourite thing so far was after our first show we went up into the square and just sat outside and had a beer. It was a nice evening and there's so much going on, the other night two women ran out of one of the theatre bars trying to drum up some interest - completely naked, and just ran past us.

Christina: Actually what we do in our spare time is look for the coffee. I think I've had about five flat whites so far and my favourite is the one right by where I'm staying. I don't know if it's because it's better or because it's the closest!

Are there any plans to perform Divallusion outside of the Fringe?

Christina: We would like to. We're looking into it. I have the pleasure of remaining in London for the next few months so I'll be around but it has made our working together schedule limited because I'll be doing eight shows a week in Forbidden Broadway for a few months. I'm happy to perform on my days off, I'm happy to perform late night shows so as long as there's an audience for it then we really want to do it.

Velma: At the moment it's nice to have the interest but it's about syncing the diaries and getting a schedule together.

Photo: Darren Bell

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