A comedy dance show about balance. Stephanie has a history of falling over a lot, accidentally kneeing herself in the face, and falling in love with total kn*bheads. In this show she uses a mixture of stand-up and dance to talk about bodies, sex, dancing, liking yourself, consent and healing. Also, there are cartoon bears and burlesque – Laing tells us more.
Q&A with Stephanie Laing
How does it feel to be returning to Edinburgh Fringe?
I’m so excited to be coming back! I love my show, and I’m really excited to be doing something new, mixing comedy and dance together.
What can you tell us about your show and its inspiration?
I got some funding from the Arts Council last year to literally become a dancer, which is madness because I’m nearly 40. And so I decided to make a show that mixes stand-up (which I’ve been doing for 17 years) with my new dance-y skills. So it’s a big mash-up.
How do you think audiences will react to the show
In previews they’ve really enjoyed it, and I think people are connecting to themes like consent, our relationship with our own bodies, and how to handle and process emotions. I sometimes feel like my therapist should have a writing credit on the show, because she’s been a big part of me working out how to frame the topics in it.
I hope it feels like a big, fun celebration. There are a couple of serious bits, but people seem to find a lot of the dances funny too, and there’s a big burlesque dance at the end so we all leave on a high.
How have you been preparing for the festival?
I’m staying in a van for the fringe (not a campervan, just a van) so I’ve been fixing that up, and making sure it locks from the inside so I don’t get murdered.
I’m also rehearsing all the dance bits in my bedroom. My venue has quite a little stage, so I’m practising all the dances in a compact way so I don’t take anyone’s eye out with a feather fan. You won’t get kicked in the face at my show, that’s a Stephanie Laing promise.
I also need to make a couple more costumes, so I’m sewing aquatic things onto crop tops (which will make sense in context – though in previews I keep forgetting to do the joke that makes the aquatic crop tops make sense, so people have been pretty mystified by my boobs at the end of the show. I think “mystified” is probably my favourite reaction to a boob.)
Will you get a chance to enjoy the rest of the festival?
Sort of. I usually try to keep things pretty chill and quiet outside of show time, so I think I’ll drive the anti-murder van out of town when I’m not performing and sit by a lake and eat tins of sweetcorn straight from the can. Edinburgh is so intense, I think it’s important not to be in the action the whole time, or I’ll lose my tiny mind.
I’ll watch some friends’ shows (Robyn Perkins and Lewys Holt especially), and I like to see some circus too. I saw one a few years ago with a woman in her 60s who’d started doing circus stuff in her 50s, and I was like THERE ARE NO LIMITS, I SIMPLY MUST DANCE.
Stephanie Laing: Rudder is at Underbelly George Square from 31 July to 26 August
