Join award-winning, absolute tornado of a cabaret star Aidan Sadler as they springboard through the top steps to surviving the apocalypse with 80s-inspired synth-wave melodies. Expect musings on the price of a meal deal, the art of living in the moment and a deliciously scandalous encounter in a shipyard. With electrifying original hits you’ll be humming to Armageddon, Melody finally answers the highly anticipated question: ‘will it ever stop?’ Nominated for Best Cabaret at the West End Wilma Awards. ‘Vivaciously vibrant, fervently funny, and fantastically frenzied cabaret hour’ * (BingeFringe.com)
Q&A with Aidan Sadler
How does it feel to be returning to Edinburgh Fringe?
Returning?! I never left! Minus holidaying in the ever-decaying arts industry for the other 11 months of the year it feels like the Edinburgh Fringe is the only time I actually get to properly “do” what I do best. That being running around in a cape and throwing flyers in unsuspecting tourists faces. I’m actually crazy excited for this years festival because I’ve managed to con not one but two producers into supporting what I like to call “my art”. So instead of working 60 shows worth of labour on running around promoting and marketing things I’m simply doing 60 shows worth of shows.
What can you tell us about your shows and their inspiration?
So I’m taking two shows to the festival this year! Big Gay Afterparty and Melody.
For Melody it’s a fabulous musical cabaret show with original music about how weird living in 2024 is. Songs about the ever inflating price of a meal deal, feeling a bit awkward and not wanting to leave the house. My inspiration for Melody was that I wanted to make a show that talks about taboo subjects but feels like a big nice warm hug from a big old mum figure (me). I did my research as well, looking at the likes of Noel Coward, Victoria Wood and my good friend Dusty Limits.
My other show is Big Gay Afterparty that’s less of a show and more of a crazy club party that runs into the early hours! Music, drag, variety, mayhem! A rotating cast of international, UK-wide and Edinburgh local performers Big Gay Afterparty truly is representative of the landscape of the festival. The idea behind it is that over the years I’ve found the “artist club bars” a bit elitist and wanted to create a cool space for artists to actually enjoy themselves, not just network!
How do you think audiences will react to the shows?
Melody had a very short whistle-stop last minute run in Edinburgh last year for 12 shows and in that very short time we gained a bit of a mad cult following. We got nominated for an award and ended up receiving 3 five and four star reviews (which if you put them together is 27 stars, it’s annoying you can’t stack them up like that, but then there wouldn’t be room on the poster).
With Big Gay Afterparty I’ve been running it in London for a couple of years. It’s always both a really accessible and nice vibe but always descends into utter debauchery. I’m very conscious of making a space that I would want to hang out in – to make the vagrants and vagabonds of the scene feel at home.
How have you been preparing for the festival?
I’ve been sobbing into a pillow! But also dissociating whilst in and out of the studio with the fabulous composers and musicians to really try and make the music as good as it can be. I’m a full time cabaret artist so doing my regular gigs and sneaking some of the new bits of Melody into it has felt both very illegal but very fun. I’m also still curating the lineups – we currently have over 125 different artists booked for Big Gay Afterparty but I feel like there can never be enough! Also I love downloading ticket reports every 15 minutes, it’s definitely not a problem and isn’t detrimental to my mental health!
Will you get a chance to enjoy the rest of the festival?
Enjoy? The Festival? Is that allowed?! But yes – there are some fabulous new shows coming up this year that I can’t wait to expose my senses to! Very famous Mark T Cox is doing a fabulous (and gay) comedy cabaret called Paddy Daddy, my mate Belle De Beauvoir is doing her stunning Blues & Burlesque, and icon, legend Mitzi Fitz (Posey Mehta) is performing her introduction to herself, Hollywood Agent Mitzi Fitz (WIP). I also am making a conscious effort to actually stop and enjoy the beautiful city this year. I always get so caught up in the whirlwind I’ve never actually done the tourist stuff, like stumbling down Leith Walk at 5AM or waking up in the gutter of Leith Walk at 5AM.
Do you have any Fringe anecdotes you can share with us?
My first ever run in Edinburgh I had never performed as a solo artist before. It was risky biscuits! And on our second night we had an absolute bomb of a review and were convinced that it was all over. The following night on the walk up to the venue myself and my co writer bumped into said reviewer. I thanked him for writing about us and he proceeded to tell us that I would never be a comedian and that I should find a better co writer, and stick to singing. Naturally we were absolutely fuming and decided to work tirelessly on the show, mainly out of spite. We took all of the criticisms of the show and actively workshopped them into making a better show, again, purely out of spite. That show went on to receive five 5-star reviews, a sell out run, and an award, and has since graced national theatres and toured endlessly.
Me and said reviewer now will meet a few times a year for a drink, and whilst I’m not always on the side of reviewers I will always hold a special place in my heart for the man who said I couldn’t do something, knowing it would make me do it ten times harder.
Melody is at The Ballroom, The Voodoo Rooms until 25 August
Big Gay Afterparty is at Just the Tonic at the Caves until 26 August
