Edinburgh Fringe: Riki Lindhome on performing her first ever festival shows

Actress, comedian and musician Riki Lindhome on her first Fringe, new show Dead Inside, and TV and film memories.

This is your first Fringe, but it hasn’t been plain sailing so far?

I sent my guitar and props by FedEx almost a month ago but they still aren’t here. And then I got sick. So I don’t have any props, I got the flu… it feels very Fringe. I thought, ‘OK, this is what everyone says happens, and I guess they’re right’.

You’re an established film and TV star, so why do the Fringe now?

My director, Brian McElhaney, is in a sketch group called Britanick and has done the Fringe the last three years. I told him last summer I was trying to write a musical, then he texted me when he came here last August and said, ‘I think you should do the Fringe’.

You’re well known for performing funny songs, but your new show is called Dead Inside, which is about your long and traumatic journey to becoming a mum. Has it been tough to straddle the line between funny and serious?

I’ve been writing funny songs a long time – since I was in college, so about 25 years. I wanted to give myself this level of challenge. It’s hard to find the balance between talking about very sad subjects and being able to take a step back and laugh at it. I don’t know if I’ve done it – I’ll let the audience be the judge of that. Some of the songs are not about fertility, so there are reprieves. It’s something I’ve been dealing with for so long and I haven’t seen much art about it.

You became a mum in 2022, but in the decade before you went through IVF, operations, miscarriages, a failed adoption and so many struggles.

I had almost everything happen in my fertility journey. It wasn’t fun, but in a way it’s a blessing because I can speak from experience. Not many people have been on every journey of fertility the way I have. I don’t know anyone who had a baby the way I did – an egg donor, sperm donor and a surrogate. It’s not the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth thing you try.

It must be tough for you to relive each night?

I’m a little scared about that. Everybody’s got painful things in their lives, but you can still be happy and have joy in your life. I feel people can relate to that.

You’re also performing a second show at the Fringe?

I’ve written a musical based on the 1999 movie, Drop Dead Gorgeous. We were in rehearsals last week and it was cool but surreal to hear these great singers performing songs I’d recorded in my closet. I’ve also contributed three songs to a musical about the Wonka experience that happened in Glasgow last year.

You were part of season one of Wednesday, the hit Netflix series about Wednesday Addams, playing her therapist, Dr Valerie Kinbott. What was that like?

We shot it during Covid in Romania, and we were there for so long and in a bubble, so I just couldn’t tell if it was going to be big. I won’t be in season two because my character died in the first season. I was so sad. I said to them, ‘But what if I didn’t die?’ and they were like, ‘No, you died.’ But I’m going to see some of my castmates, because they’re shooting the new series in Ireland and they’re coming over to see my Fringe show.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of your film debut in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby. What was it like working under Clint?

His sets are very different from other sets, because he’s used the same crew for 40 years, and they are high-level experts working in synchronicity. It really spoiled me. He does one take of each scene. You do it once and then you’re done. I thought, wow, movies are so easy! But it’s never been that easy since. The first scene I did was with Clint, Hillary Swank and Margo Martindale. I got the role from being in a little play in a 99-cent theatre in LA, and Clint happened to come in. It was wild.

Dead Inside, Pleasance Courtyard Beneath, to Aug 25 (not 5, 14); Drop Dead Gorgeous, Pleasance Dome, Aug 7-10, 21-24