On this date next month, the Storytelling Centre’s first Festival Fringe performance will take to the stage – and it’s only Moira fae Falkirk, back with another slice of home truths on the state of the world as we know it…
Creator Alan Bissett answered some quick questions for us.
How would you describe your show in one sentence?
Falkirk’s hardest woman tells it like it is.
Is this a new show or have you performed it elsewhere?
This new show has had just one preview performed in Glasgow at the Glad Café ahead of its debut Fringe run.
How many times have you performed at the Fringe Festival before?
Five.
What’s your favourite thing about the Fringe?
The opportunity to perform in front of people who have never heard of me and are taking a chance, then working hard to bring them round over the course of an hour.
That, and the boozy, carnival-esque nights.
How have you been preparing for the Fringe? How has the show developed/changed since your original idea?
Well, myself and Sacha Kyle, the director, are developing on from the original Moira Monologues, which first ran at the Fringe in 2010. We’re checking back in on the character. Scotland, Britain, the world is a very different place seven years on, so how has Moira changed with it?
That said, this isn’t a ‘sequel’ as such, as you don’t have to have seen the first show to understand this one – it’s more like ‘continuing adventures’ than a direct sequel.
What do you think sets your show apart from all the other Festival offerings?
Count the number of shows about Scottish working-class women.
They make up vast swathes of the country, and shoulder a disproportionate amount of the economic and social burden, but they’re practically invisible on stages at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Moira is a sharp, forceful rebuke to that. She makes herself heard, that’s for sure.
What’s the show that you don’t want to miss at this year’s Fringe?
Probably Turntable by Martin O’Connor, Michael-John McCarthy and Rachel O’Neill; three artists I very much admire, who are inviting the audience to take a trip through musical history by browsing their vinyl collection. Sounds like fun.
If your show was a place in Edinburgh, which place would it be and why?
Leith Dockers’ Club. On Girls’ Night.
(More) Moira Monologues
Previews Wed 2 & Thu 3 Aug, £10
Fri 4 – Mon 28 Aug (NOT 14, 21), £15 (£12) (£11.50 SCS)
7pm (1hr)
