Tell us about your show. Why should we go and see it?
My show is called Wet. It’s my best show so far.
I know that will mean nothing to you, but to me it does. It’s an hour of funny stories about various times that I didn’t voice my discomfort about something until it was farcical. I did it as a teenager and I’m still doing it now.
Are you flying solo or are you part of a team?
It’s just me but I’ve had a bunch of help, every comedian who’s seen my show, I picked their brains on the train home. I’ve decided to for Edinburgh full whack this year, so I’ve a director Lois Walsh. It’s her first time directing, she’s seen thousands of stand up shows and works in loads of comedy venues, so she knows her stuff. It’s nice sitting in the sun with her discussing the intricacies of the power balance of a hand shandy. My boyfriend is teching my show and Striplight are producing it. I’m going to have flyerers, I hope they like compliments, sausage rolls and lucozades because that’s what they’ll be getting along with money.
What are your hopes and dreams for the Fringe?
That I’ll get on Richard Osman’s house of games. Seriously – that I don’t financially or mentally destroy myself.
I’m looking forward to making the show the best it can be. Gigging as much as I can and feeling like a proper comedian who lives and breathes comedy. I’m really looking forward to hanging out with people who’re excited about comedy and life at the moment. christ that’s sincere.
Also can’t wait for the fireworks this year. I’d love to do a small tour and do a run of shows somewhere in london.
What makes you laugh?
People being inappropriate at funerals. My grandfather when he watches Saturday night entertainment shows and my friend Fern’s voicenotes about her day. I once stuck a pen into a half a lime and pretended it was a hat person, that had me laughing for days but I cant do that at the Fringe.
What is it that made you a performer?
I was a child of a volatile divorce that needed someone to break the tension and moved schools a lot.
My boss was a stand-up and suggested I tried it.
My first landlord didn’t gouge me for rent so I could be on the dole and explore stand-up while living in Dublin. He’s a rare breed.
Thank you Philip!
Also I live off external validation.
How will your audience think/feel differently after an hour in your company?
They’ll instantly join the queue for my show again. “it’s not on for another twenty three hours” the Pleasance staff will cry out in anguish. “We do not care, we’ll wait” say the audience and it will remain this way until four days later, the government get involved and pepper spray everyone involved. There will be martyrs as the power of my jokes and storytelling will blow people’s minds in the form of actual explosions, shattering people’s skulls outwards in front of the falafel stand in the Pleasance Courtyard. At a loss for what to do, I will be arrested and executed, it will start a movement. I will be known as the Joker. No one will be safe ever again.
Or as my show is on at 16.45 the audience might be peckish by the time they’re done with me? 17.45 is prime thinking about dinner time.
Whose show – apart from your own – are you looking forward to seeing at the Edinburgh Fringe?
Too many – Alice Fraser, Abigolia Shchulman, Sam Cambell, Fern Brady Red Richardson, Glenn Moore, Pierre Novellie and Mat Ewins. I need to look up plays and caberet.
What’s the most useful piece of advice you’ve been given?
In comedy?
When you see someone flash a light at the back of the room, it’s your time walk off the stage.
If the creepy man wants to pay you in another room, make sure you bring someone with you.
Do you have a favourite Fringe memory?
I’m going to give you glimpses of stuff that make me smile.
Finding out some prime Fringe gossip whilst sitting on a window sill. Running through a golf course very late at night and finding a friend in a big box that she hid in. A graveyard tour guide accused me of shoplifting his knowledge. Spraining my ankle and being fed weed syrup as a pain killer and being paranoid about being irish in an A and E
Who is your showbiz/Fringe idol and why.
Mat Ewins, If I die from laughing. Who knows? I might. arrest that man.
Alison Spittle, Wet, 16.45pm Pleasance Courtyard, The Attic, August 3-8, 10- 28
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/alison-spittle-wet
