EDINBURGH 2022: Lucy Frederick Guest Blog

Guest Blog: Lucy Frederick brings her powerful new stand-up comedy show to the Fringe

Lucy discusses past shows, personal vulnerability and positivity

Comedian, writer and actor Lucy Frederick blogs for Broadway World about bringing Big Fat Wedding to the Fringe, writing a comedy show with a positive message and how her performances resonate with different audiences.

Well, hello there! My name is Lucy Frederick and this summer I am taking my new show 'Lucy Frederick's Big Fat Wedding' to Edinburgh Fringe. It's a show about getting married when you're a fat person. It charts the search for the perfect wedding dress and negotiating everyone's opinion of how weddings are meant to be; learning to embrace a fat body and take up space both literally and figuratively!

I did my first Fringe show in 2013. It was a silly show about trying to be one of the cool kids. I had a whale of a time but frankly, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I didn't know all the 'tricks of the trade' of splitting an hour or doing a 45-minute show - all so that your first hour can be as high profile and professional as possible. I knew none of that so I wanged out an hour of daftness and hoped that some people would come and see it.

The next two Fringe shows I did were similarly silly. I wrote a whole show about animals which was 'like catching up with a best friend' according to one reviewer but 'a decidedly moribund hour' according to another. Like lots of us, I pretend not to care about rubbish reviews but that word moribund stuck in my heart for a long time. I felt like I was doing my best to be palatable and friendly; my shows were nice. Super nice!

But nice isn't necessarily particularly interesting.

And after some soul searching, I realised why that harsh review was bothering me so much.

It was because I'd tried so hard to write a show that was inoffensive, kind, friendly, and...nice...that I'd strayed a long way from what makes me, me. I'd written a show that I didn't care about. And so, no one else did either. The next year - 2016 - I gathered my courage and wrote something that meant an awful lot to me. I wrote about losing my mother at 23 years old; about the rage that is a part of grief that no one really talks about.

A bit of a change from a show about animals that I've owned. But I loved doing that show. I cared about it, and I connected deeply with audience members; many of whom stopped to have a hug as they left. A shared moment of realising that we are not alone I suppose.

Perversely for a comedian I found I really loved making people cry a bit (as well as laugh obviously). I enjoy getting to chat to people afterwards and hearing their stories or listening to them explain why the show resonated with them.

Recently, after a preview of Lucy Frederick's Big Fat Wedding, a young woman in her late teens came to tell me that it was 'exactly what she needed to hear' and honestly, even if no-one else likes it I'm just so glad I could write something that spoke to her about her relationship with her own body. Writing shows with a positive message gives me an awful lot more fulfilment than writing a standard comedy show. But also, I think there are people who already do that phenomenally well. There are lots of people who are funnier than me; that's a fact. But I'm your woman if you want to laugh and feel something. I hope my shows are still like catching up with a best friend - it's just that now that friend is a little franker and more honest about life.

I don't care - as long as they're not moribund!

Lucy Frederick's Big Fat Wedding, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Coorie), 3.40pm, 3-28th (not 16)

Photo credit: Karla Gowlett

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