EDINBURGH 2022: PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO SHARE Q&A

BWW catches up with the team behind Please, Feel Free To Share to chat about bringing the show to the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Please, Feel Free to Share.

Please, Feel Free to Share is a dynamic, darkly comic one-woman show about our personal addictions, the never-ending pursuit of likes and our growing desire to share everything in our lives. It's about what happens when reality gives way to fantasy and about how addictive that can be.

It follows the story of Alex, a high-flying social media expert, who, when her father dies, is sent to a grief group, which she begins fabricating the facts of her life in a way that soon becomes an addiction for her. Soon, she must decide whether her newfound love of live self-editing is worth risking the chance at an honest relationship and whether or not she can ever get away from the reality of her past. It's a show that asks the question, how long can we run from the truth before reality comes knocking?

What was the inspiration behind writing the play?

I wrote the play because I was fascinated by online phenomena that I was seeing based around moments of self-editing. Things like Instagram Dysphoria and 'sad-fishing' had begun to catch my eye and I wanted to see what these modern compulsions would look like when projected into a real-world situation, with a character who has now become addicted to editing the facts about her life, and why that might be. It's a play that questions our desire to present edited versions of ourselves in an ever-increasing world of temptation to do so.

Why did you think this was an important story to tell?

I think it's important because at its core, it's about lies, which feels like something which is at once universal and very personal. Whether that's lying to yourself, to others, to the world. Social media in particularly is rife for lying, or 'editing', and depending on who you are as a person, this can be varying degrees of addictive or comforting. Unfortunately, this is creating a growing culture of 'objective truth', where we begin to believe everything that is presented as true, even if it isn't, which can be dangerous in the wrong hands - particularly world leaders on Twitter, for example...

Ironically, I also just wanted to tell a story that felt truthful. I wanted Alex to be recognisable, even in her bad behaviour, and for the audience to really go along on that fun, fast-paced ride with her.

Who would you like to come and see it?

Because of that universality - I really do think it's a show for all teenagers and adults who have ever felt like they have edited a part of their life so that it's perceived a different way, even if that's tiny and inconsequential. It's funny, it's moving and it's a gripping show that delves and spirals into why Alex has found herself in this position, and if there's any hope for her stopping.

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

I hope audiences have fun first and foremost! It's a dynamic and playful show with an unreliable narrator at its core but I hope that they see something recognisable in Alex, and in why feels like she must lie about who she is, as well as maybe thinking just a second longer before editing something about themselves online.

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