EDINBURGH 2023: CHOO CHOO! Q&A

BWW catches up with Nye Russell Thompson to chat about bringing Choo Choo! (Or... Have You Ever Thought About ****** **** *****? (Cos I Have)) to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Choo Choo! (Or... Have You Ever Thought About ****** **** *****? (Cos I Have))

The story of CHOO CHOO! follows Nye who has intrusive thoughts, and his best pal Duncan, who doesn’t. 

What was the inspiration behind writing it?

My experiences with intrusive thoughts and the frustration with feeling unable to talk about them - and the fact that that lots of other people are experiencing them too. A lot of the core team have had them as well, so we were determined to make something to help us express ourselves - which is what StammerMouth is all about as a company.

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

Intrusive thoughts are a misunderstood condition, inherently hard to talk about because often they make the person having them think they are bad, or dangerous. 

This can lead to ruminating, and obsessing over the idea that we are dangerous, because a thought, or subject, keeps occurring to us without our control.

So we wanted to talk about it and help to normalise them, raise awareness and solidarity, and hopefully help disarm them.

Who would you like to come and see it?

People who have had intrusive thoughts,  who we hope will feel understood upon seeing the show. And everyone else too, because you can have intrusive thoughts at any point in your life. 

CHOO CHOO! has been created with accessibility for Deaf, partially sighted and Blind people, so every single show has embedded audio description. We have with touch tours before the show starts and with British Sign Language interpretation by our amazing Laura, who we interact with during the show. She’s fab.

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

That you are not your thoughts! Oh, and you’ll probably have a new catchy song stuck in your head.

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