EDINBURGH 2017: BWW Q&A- The Beasts

Tell us a bit about The B*easts.

The B*easts is a dark modern fable about the world we are creating through advertising, global marketing and the internet, and how our perceptions of ourselves are perhaps changing - are our identities being constructed from the outside? Does that include our sexual identities? Are we in a constant state of looking at and evaluating ourselves or being led by the advertisers' mindset of "improving" ourselves, rather than examining ourselves as human beings and what can the consequences of that be? Do we really have any armour against that when it permeates virtually everything we look at?

In particular, The B*easts looks at the sexualisation of culture and the potential effect of that on children - now and in the future. What sort of culture are we inventing and entering - are we sleepwalking into it as something normal? How much is your thinking your own when it is being drawn by "what you may also like"? And, whilst the 'cookie people' like to know as much as possible about our behaviour, it is not necessarily in their interests to know too much about your demographic -perhaps it could get them in trouble!

It is a cracking 'What If?' yarn too - but I don't want to say too much about what happens - just that it follows the repercussions of an event which could plausibly present itself and unfold within today's culture, and that it is essentially a story-telling piece.

What was the inspiration behind the piece?

I had already written another play (still in my bottom drawer!) which investigated or touched on some of the themes in The B*easts and I found myself getting drawn further into this territory. The actual trigger for the idea for the story was a visual one - a mock Roman statue at the far end of a swimming pool on a spa break with my friend after the end of a long acting job. The style of the piece was inspired by Peter Ustinov and Dave Allen whose easy storytelling relationship with the audience had me under a spell from a very young age. I love the immediacy of that. The B*easts is definitely not a comedy, though!

Why bring it to Edinburgh?

I wanted to premiere The B*easts at Edinburgh rather than anywhere else. For a start it is pretty shameful to have got to my age and never performed at the Edinburgh Fringe! I have really enjoyed the Festival since my early teens - visiting at different points in my life, and helping out on a couple of shows there in the last few years led me to feel a bit braver about the idea of performing there myself. Edinburgh is a place to try things out, where the audience is looking for a challenge, and this is the first time I have written anything on my own to be performed by me, so I thought I would place it where there is a lot of performance and audience energy and we all know we are powerfully committed to experimenting.

Who would you recommend comes to see The B*easts?

Part of the journey of taking The B*easts to Edinburgh is, I suppose, to find who its audience is. I have done a couple of development readings on it and have had thoughtful and positive feedback from young women in their early twenties to fairly elderly men! What I like is that people seem keen to talk about the ideas in it afterwards. We have got a guidance age of 14+ - the events in it mean it would not be suitable for children - but the themes in it certainly affect young people. I hope for a wide range of adults in the audience, young and old, and teenagers too. It is not for the fainthearted.

Are there any other shows you're hoping to catch at the festival?

I have already booked for Sara Pascoe (Sara is in W1A too), Reginald D Hunter, Richard Herring and Richard Gadd: Monkey See, Monkey Do. I love seeing Mark Thomas up there, but unfortunately he is on at the same time as me, and so is Shappi Khorsandi. I plan to seeFocus On: Lola and Jo, Max and Ivan and Rose Matafeo. Theatrewise, I think I'm going tolisten out and see what people are excited about when I get up there. There are always a number of shows everyone is talking about.

Timings and ticket information for The Beasts are available on the edfringe website.

Photo Credit: Alan Harris

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