EDINBURGH 2023: Njambi McGrath Q&A

BWW caught up with Njambi McGrath to chat about bringing Outkast to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Outkast.

Growing up in colonial Kenya, I had big dreams. Singing was my future, or so I thought. Until I joined the school choir. Asked to sing in front of everyone my croaking angered the music teacher who banished me from choir. Forever. I was 8.

British colonial legacies have permeated every aspect of my upbringing. This saw me taken to boarding school at 8 where I was laughed at for speaking broken English with an accent and forced to have an English name. They humiliated me so much it cured her bed wetting. Who knew that was the cure for bedwetting. This, combined with corporal punishment meant that I sustained at school meant did everything to get out of school. I even gave my anaphylaxis by rubbing a poisonous plant all over my body just so she could go home. This undoubtedly created the pain required to be a comic.

Being a middle child with 2 older inseparable sisters and two younger brothers whose games I didn’t appreciate, I was always other. As a child I identified as a loner. If I was a white boy, I’d have a high school massacre under my belt. My only companion was a dog. So, I was always destined to live in the UK, a nation of dog lovers.

Outkast is a show about broken dreams. Rejection can turn you into a sour crow like who the hell rejected Suella Braverman. Rejection can break you like Brexit promises which promised an immigrant free utopia only to end up with a Hindu Indian prime minister. However, rejection is the fuel that drives me. I want to succeed just so that people who rejected me can see me doing well and they to gape at me in wonder. Like the emoji.

Why is this an important story to tell?

The UK has amnesia about its past. With glorification of the empire, little is explored on the impact colonialism had and continues to have on people they conquered. The UK refuses to confront it’s past and I am the very specimen of the colonial project.

Where else might we know you from?

You might have heard me from my BBC Radio 4 series Becoming Njambi and I am over the moon about my new series coming soon. You might also have read my memoir Through The Leopard’s. My debut fiction will be out in october after signing a 2 book deal. You may have seen my viral videos on TikTok and Instagram

What would you like audiences to take away from Outkast?

 I would like the audience to know that nothing happens in isolation. I’d like the audience to live a day in the shoes of a British subject. History has consequences and those consequences, are me telling colonial jokes.

Having performed at the festival before, do you think you know what to expect from the Fringe?

The fringe is a beast that has surprises and morphs with every show and every audience. Who knows what this one will yield.

Njambi McGrath’s new stand-up show ‘OutKast’ will be at the Gilded Balloon Teviot – Turret at 3pm from 3rd – 28th August for tickets go to www.edfringe.com

Photo credit: Steve Ullathore

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