Award winning Sarah Roberts brings her show, Silkworm, to the Edinburgh Fringe. Here she talks to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about her new hour, what audiences can expect and making her debut at the Fringe.
I want them to take away that women can be anything including awful or annoying, and all of that is fine.
How would you describe your debut show, Silkworm?
It’s about the stories that we tell ourselves and other people about who we are. It’s kind of an anti-identity show in that it’s about finding out about who I wasn’t before I could find out who I was and how that was kind of informed by conforming to the male gaze. There are a lot of personal stories in there, so it centres around the double jaw surgery that I had when I was 21 and the crux of the show is finding lightness in the shadier experiences of womanhood.
Where did the title, Silkworm, come from?
When it was in work in progress stage, it was called Worm In Progress. I took it up to the Edinburgh Fringe last year as a scrappy 45 minutes. And I called it that at the time because I love memes so much and I loved the, ‘would you still love me if I was a worm’ meme, but I wanted to keep the sort of worm theme. And I was speaking to my friend Bebe and we were talking about the show, and she helped me come up with Silkworm. The whole show is about being perceived wrong and put in a box and silkworms are not actually even worms, they’re moths. So, they’re also perceived wrong. A lot of the show is me waiting in the wings to become perfect before I felt like I could live my life and waiting to get this double jaw surgery, it felt like being in a cocoon. So, it felt thematically right.
You mentioned your double jaw surgery, but was there anything else that inspired this particular set?
When it was a 45-minute show I didn’t, I kind of just had all of the bits, I mean it wasn’t really a show, it was a work in progress of bits I’d written all condensed into 45 minutes. But I guess it didn’t really have a story or anything that tied it all together and then I was kind of thinking about it and looking at all of the things I’d written like ever and I realised that it was all kind of about the double jaw surgery. It’s less about that specific story and more just about I guess celebrating who you are. A lot of my comedy is sort of telling quite disgusting stories and in a way that is not feeling any shame, and that’s kind of a liberating experience within a culture that profits off shame. I think just all of those things that I was already writing about felt like they came together. And I think there’s also an element of like, there’s also a persona that I have that is sort of like, “I’m amazing, I’m impenetrable and you’re all obsessed with me,” and I think that kind of comes out, including feeling like I have all of these past lives; I think I was Henry VIII in my previous life and I’m amazing at Candy Crush and all of these things that sound really silly but to my onstage persona they feel really true to who I am.
If it’s not too much of a spoiler, how do you figure that you were Henry VIII in a past life?
Basically, it’s just very narcissistic, which is the joke, but I basically just feel as though often when I’m reading about stuff on Wikipedia or at school, like learning about stuff I’d be like, “Yeah, I feel like that happened to me, I feel like I can connect with that in a way that it definitely happened to me.” And I also just think it’s funny to be like there’s almost a karmic thing in having been this really terrible guy that famously hated women in your previous life and then to be reincarnated as a woman who is hated. It’s just a really funny juxtaposition to me. It’s fun to think about. So many people who I ask when I’m onstage also say they think they were Henry VIII in a previous life, so I feel like it’s kind of like another Roman Empire thing.
How did your experience with Candy Crush start?
Partly kind of waiting for my life to begin, it’s definitely a form of disassociation, but it’s also just honestly something that stayed with me. I started playing it literally when it came out when I was pre-jaw surgery and it made me feel really good about myself; no one was talking to me about my face or the way that I looked. I was only being perceived as being really good at Candy Crush and I really liked that feeling of only existing in this one space and not having a body. And also, it’s just a really good game, I love Candy Crush so much. I think people are either not into it at all or completely addicted, like I’ve had people in my shows that have done way more Candy Crush than me. There was a girl who came, and she had completed Candy Crush and would wait every week for the new level to come out (cause they bring out a new level every week). I think it’s like marmite.
How would you describe your comedic style and how did you figure out that it was the right fit for you?
I think my comedic style is quite dark and it’s very specific, as in I think a lot of my humour comes from very specific honest storytelling, and also some surreal stuff. I would say that it’s very specific examples of things but also quite bluntly told. I remember when I started stand-up comedy, I had been thinking about it for a while but I started because my best friend’s brother started and so I was going to open mics with him and it was an immediate source of gratification for me. I won this tiny little cup the first time I did it and I felt really good about myself, so I think I was really lucky to find that voice early on which maybe came from having written a lot of my stories previously as first-person essays or short stories and stuff and figuring out the way I felt comfortable to tell them onstage. That was almost kind of secondary. I think I always knew that I wanted for people to never to feel sorry for me. I know a lot of comedians they’re kind of like ‘below’ the audience and the stories that I am telling and the way that I tell them, I always want it to be that I think I’m ‘above’ the audience, but the audience is listening to these quite tragic stories and they’re like, “She doesn’t know that she’s actually not doing as well as she thinks she is.” That’s where the humour comes for me. I think it was quite natural finding this voice.
Before I did comedy, I did a lot of writing; I studied creative writing at uni and that always felt more what I was drawn to. And I think that there are things that I wouldn’t talk about onstage. I’ll often talk about things and then be like, “Oh I didn’t like how that was taken by the audience.” I like making the personal universal, but only when it feels right, I think there are things that I wouldn’t want to talk about onstage. My double jaw surgery is obviously a very specific experience, but there are also so many things that are hilarious that were part of that experience and also just kind of being told when you were younger that you couldn’t get the surgery and feeling like your life will transform, it almost feels like a teen movie or like The Princess Diaries or something where it’s like, “Oh you’re going to get this makeover and then you’re going to be the Queen of Genovia.” That story felt like a parallel for me to all of these ideas of what becoming a woman was when I was growing up. I think things are funnier when they are true. The comedy I love is always really personal and I guess there’s a catharsis in telling horrific stories that have happened to you and taking ownership of them. I think if you pick the right stories and the right way of telling them, that can be really empowering.
What do you hope audiences will take away from the show?
I hope they will have found it just funny and fun and silly, like there are a lot of really stupid things in the show and surreal things, so I hope firstly that. And also, I want them to take away that women can be anything including awful or annoying, and all of that is fine.
What are you looking forward to about making your debut this year?
I’m really excited to make a show. I love watching full shows, I loved like Julia Masli’s show last year, I loved Clementine by Rosalie Minnitt, and I also love Jordan Brookes’ shows. I just I think with stand-up you do 10 minutes or 20 minutes at a time and you kind of learn to write in that way, and I’m really excited to actually develop my stories and jokes and what I’m trying to say across an hour. And I’m also really excited to like just really make it feel like a show that’s kind of my aim.
