Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Comedian Chelsea Birkby is calmly excited for her festival debut

Having written on multiple series of Mock the Week, Chelsea Birkby is preparing to take to the stage herself in her Edinburgh Fringe debut.

In No More Mr Nice Chelsea, she asks: what is nice? Who does it serve? And don’t we need to let our darker side out occasionally?

Here, we’re asking the questions ahead of the festival kicking off next month…

How are you feeling ahead of your debut stand-up hour at the Fringe?

Ooh, I had a couple of weeks where fear was the predominant feeling and that manifested in me only watching Love Island and buying a singing bowl and saying “I’ll be fine because I have this bowl”.

Now, I remembered it’s the most fun thing in the world and I’m calmly excited and just trying to figure out what to wear.

What is your show all about, and what inspired it?

My show is “No More Mr Nice Chelsea” and it’s about being lovely, who it serves and when it’s time to stop. Reviewers often call me “sweet” and “innocent”, now I’m trying out being bad! A rebrand is a bold move for your debut, but hey I don’t play by the rules (if that’s okay?!)

It’s inspired by philosophy (where do our ideas comes from and do they hold up?), two weeks of clown school (the audience loved me most when I was aggressive and yielding a plastic knife – that’s not in the show don’t worry) and 2000s pop culture because for me being nice was made in the noughties.

You don’t shy away from tougher topics, is this something you’ve always felt comfortable with on stage?

Ah, interesting! I think it’s less about comfort on stage and more comfort on the page: I open up my leopard print girl boss notepad and, before I know it, I’m writing about tougher topics. I’ve always been that way; it turns out my method of unpacking tough topics is with humour, which I am sure is normal and healthy and nothing to look into.

Comfort on stage came later. A lot of comics were performers who learned to write or writers who learned to perform and I’d always presumed it was the writing that was most important, now I think it’s the complete opposite: it’s how someone is in that moment in the room. That’s why stand-up is best live. And when you have someone be really with you, in the moment (comfortable or not) it’s exquisite: that’s what I love the most as an act and as a fan. There’s nothing like it!

What put you on the path to a career in comedy?

I’ve always made myself laugh, I have my exact same sense of humour. As a kid, I’d write parody magazines, or for homework I’d submit comedic diary entries from the POV of a medieval peasant instead of a report. At work, I got in trouble for spicing up internal comms with gags. Still, it didn’t occur to me until much later to think I should be comedic in an appropriate medium, let alone do stand-up. In fact, I used to dislike stand-up, until someone convinced me to watch some Simon Amstell. I never looked back.

You’re a writer for Mock The Week – do you have similar processes for writing for yourself as you do others?

If I’m writing jokes for myself I usually start with how I feel and the subject and jokes emerge from that. But for Mock the Week I already have the topic (e.g. what’s BoJo done this week) and I then guess the attitude the comic I’m writing for might take (BoJo sucks) so it’s more focused.

I’m actually so much more productive writing for someone else, it’s both more liberating not having to work out how I feel, and yet more pressured as there are rapid deadlines and it has to be high-quality. Maybe I need to commission myself!

If you had to pick one item that’s essential for surviving a month at the Fringe, what would that be?

PRACTICAL SHOES! Edinburgh has it all – including all the terrains and all the season’s weather in a month. When I wear comfortable shoes, I never even think about my feet/body, I’m just a being in the world. When they rub, my body is cage!!! And that’s not the best vibe to bring to the stage.

The Edinburgh Fringe can throw up some surprises – what is the strangest moment you can remember from the festival?

Years ago, before I ever did comedy, I visited my friends in Edinburgh during August. I had no idea what the Fringe was I just thought “wow Edinburgh’s busy and the people here have a very eccentric dress sense”. A group of us on a big night out went to see a late-night show, but in our naivety (/state), we arrived at an empty room and it turned out it was the act’s night off.

Undeterred, my friend James decided to pretend to be a comic and put on a show just for us. A few minutes later, other audience members made the same mistake we did and walked in expecting a show.

Well, they got one! James carried on another 10 minutes or more just improvising interactive songs and getting the audience to shout their favourite numbers before they clocked that this wasn’t the show they were expecting. Five stars.

What do you think it is about the Edinburgh Fringe that attracts people from all around the world to come to watch and also to perform?

You can see anything at the Edinburgh Fringe in one day: a heartfelt play, clown, circus, mime, stand-up with your political persuasion, one of the many only right-wing comedians, one-liners, storytelling, sketch. And you can see performers from all around the world at all different stages of their career.

You can take a punt on a show and it can be the best thing you’ve ever seen, or maybe you’ll spend the hour wondering if they’ll say anything to you if you try to leave. And then after you can eat a deep-fried mars bar, climb Arthur’s seat or go vintage shopping (Armstrong’s is my fave vintage shop in the world).

As far as summer holidays go, sure a sunny beach and a mojito is nice, but it’s no Tennent’s in a drizzly courtyard, cheeks sore from laughing.

What is your favourite one-liner?

Jamie D’Souza has 7 of my top 10 fave jokes. Here’s one: “I don’t know if anyone’s ever done this, but I was on someone’s Instagram, and I accidentally…commented ‘I love you’ on one of her pics.”

Chelsea Birkby: No More Mr Nice Chelsea, Just the Tonic at The Caves, August 4-16, 16-28 15:40, tickets here.