EDINBURGH 2023: Chelsea Hart Q&A

BWW caught up with Chelsea Hart to chat about bringing Damet Garm- How I Joined A Revolution to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Damet Garm- How I Joined A Revolution.

The show draws inspiration directly from the ongoing Iranian revolution. All the way back 9 months ago I posted some satire ripping into the vanity of the ruling mullahs and Iranians loved every bit of it. I couldn't ignore what I was being shown by the people on the ground and I felt it in my core that I wanted to use my voice to show these ruling hedonists exactly for what they are, in a way western people like me can understand. Too many of us had internalised the orientalist narrative of the regime, however well-meaning we might have been. "Death to America" was what they wanted us to believe, and it was so far from anything that Iranians are. I was angry at how much I'd been lied to, how much the United States and western powers had enabled the mullahs knowing full well their crimes against humanity.

I've worked in Bosnia for the last 8 years, a place that rewrote me and changed the trajectory of my life. I saw so many parallels between the apathy they experienced from the west to what Iranians have been going through since the death of Mahsa Amini, and I'd made a promise to myself at 22 in Sarajevo that I'd never let something that terrible pass me by. Every Iranian face that the regime has taken is burned into my brain. But Iranians are also so much more than this pain too, and that's what I want people to understand from the show.

With this being your debut at the festival, do you think you know what to expect from the Fringe?

I've done the fringe before, and in fact the fringe is a place of beginnings for me. In 2014 I came to the festival with just 5 pounds to my name and became a street performer and never looked back. I came back the next year and got hooked on comedy and even did my first gig. The festival is an old friend and it feels a little "circle of life" to be finally bringing my full-length piece to the festival at last.

Where else might we know you from?

I've been making online content for several years. I get stopped by my fans in the street for it. 

Who would you like to come and see it?

I know it's a long shot and a half, but Suzy Eddie Izzard has been a favourite of mine for many years. If she came I actually might die. 

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

I want the audience to believe in the power of community. We've lost the belief in being able to build anything. I'd like it if people came away feeling empowered towards empathy.

See Chelsea Hart: Darnet Garm – How I Joined a Revolution at 7.40pm in Gilded Balloon Teviot (Sportsmans) from: 2nd – 27th August (not 14th)

Booking Link: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:4922/

Photo credit: Pouya Ramzi

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