Ahead of the Edinburgh Fringe, award-winning performer Dan Wye chats to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about their debut stand-up show, Dan Wye Am I Sam Smith, their comedy style and approach to performing.
It was nice to go back to a place of dressing up and wearing make-up
How would you summarise your show?
It’s an exploration of my queer journey as a person that kind of got overshadowed by the fact that I had won 4 Brit Awards and that I was actually Sam Smith. So, it’s kind of the absurd reality of being a doppelganger.
If it’s not too much of a spoiler, how did that start?
I’ve always been told that I look like people. Like the first time I was ever called "gay” was because I looked like the gay best friend in Billy Elliot, Michael Caffrey, when I was about 5 years old. And then, people would say that I look like Sam Smith, and after that it really started amping up. I went to Turkey because I wanted to get a hair transplant and they shaved my head, and then when I came back people literally thought I was Sam Smith. So, like, everywhere I went, people were filming me, and coming up to me for autographs or singing near me secretly, as if I was going to turn around and be like, “Me and you in the studio, let’s go". This was a super tense moment of me experiencing what it was like to be an A-list celebrity, without any perks at all, just all the harassment from everybody all the time.
What comedy style do you use to tell your story?
I like the idea that I’m in a smoking area in a club and you just borrowed my lighter, and we’re just kind of tipsily chatting away, telling each other our deepest woes and sharing our greatest joys with a stranger. And that’s kind of what I like the idea of it to be. Just like good storytelling with the new best friend that you’ve met in the club.
How have you been able to use skills interchangeably from other performance disciplines in your work?
It’s been interesting writing more as myself, cause Séayoncé’s such a character, they’ve got a real style. The genre’s very much like Dameism, you know. They are quite a powerful Dame and a lot of that is innuendo, wordplay and that classic style of comedy where you attach to a character. So, it’s been really nice to go back to storytelling instead of having to make jokes about ghosts all the time, but there’s definitely a difference.
The reason I started making Séayoncé was because I was kind of bored of stand-up. I was also bored being the only queer person on a bill or the only queer person in the room. Being able to make a drag character, I got to go more in the cabaret world. And also, that tap back into me being this camp little child dressing up in dresses, that kind of gets taken away from you as you’re in the closet, and it was nice to go back to a place of dressing up and wearing make-up and being camp and that being a strength and a thing that I was being paid for, the reclaiming of that. But they’re very different in style.
At the moment, it’s the question of how much Séayoncé do I bring into Dan, but I want it to be separate things. Séayoncé is a lot more smoke and mirrors - I want the Dan show to be a lot more about the person chatting about their experience, connecting with people through those stories and the common ground of identity, but through the lens of that being taken away from you because people think you’re someone else. I think that’s quite a nice, heightened lens to look at identity through. Doing Séayoncé for so long has given me power as Dan; it’s elevated me as a queer person, it’s really helped me evolve and find pride in my strengths, and the femininity of self. And all the power that character has, they can step into any room and dominate that space, and I’m trying to bring that kind of relaxed power into my own performance.
