With less than a month to go until the Edinburgh Fringe Festival begins theatre companies across the country are trialing their shows to gage audience reactions before taking them to one of the countries biggest arts festivals. Upper Circle spoke to writer and performer Sadie Clark about her one woman show ‘Algorithms.’
The tagline of the show is “a bisexual Bridget Jones for the online generation” and the entire piece is incredibly personal to Sadie, as she explained she started writing it about a year ago, when her mental health wasn’t in a brilliant place, “I was spending a lot of time looking online at other people’s lives on Facebook and Instagram and feeling like everyone else is doing much better than I was.” This modern phenomenon of compare and despair was a key inspiration for the play along with Sadie’s longing to have a bisexual character featured in a positive way, “I only came out as bi-about three years ago and part of that was definitely because I’d just not seen any bisexual people represented anywhere in pop culture.”
Bi-earsure is a problem the media has been criticised for a number of years now, with Sadie saying, “I felt really strongly that if I’d seen people who were bi just being represented without the horrible stereotypes, I probably would have realised a bit earlier that I was bi too.”
Being a one woman show, Sadie acknowledged that the energy of the piece was completely different from anything else she’s done, “you’re in dialogue with the audience so if something throws you a bit, or you feel or get it into your head that the audience aren’t enjoying it or maybe they’re not responding how you were expecting it can be quite tricky, because that’s who you’re in a cycle of energy with.” However it’s also clear that having control of the show and the character she now gets to play is really exciting for Sadie, “I love the character that I play so much, she’s silly and ditsy and a bit over dramatic and melodramatic, It’s a really fun part to play, so I really enjoy getting up on stage and doing it, I’ve also written in a few little dancey silly bits just because I like dancing and they’re my favourite bits actually, that’s when I feel like I can fully relax when I get to do a stupid fake salsa a third of the way through the show.”
Like many creatives set to take shows to Edinburgh Sadie has been previewing the show and using feedback to help with redevelopment on the show and says, “it’s just been amazing having feedback and responses from people who have seen it in previews in that people find it relatable,” and is really excited to be in Edinburgh with the show to “see loads of other shows there and just be completely immersed in a really cool arts festival.”
Sadie promises her show “will make you laugh and make you feel good by the end, no matter how exhausted – I’ll buy you a drink if it doesn’t make you laugh!”
Algorithms has previews on at Old Red Lion Theatre, 12th July, 7pm and Omnibus Theatre, 18th July, 7.30pm and is at the Pleasance Courtyard Edinburgh 31st July – 26th August.
Jennifer Thompson
