ED FRINGE 2023 INTERVIEW | Everyone's Worried About Eve

With the Edinburgh Festival Fringe now underway, we’ve caught up with some of the artists and creative teams to chat about their work. Amongst all of the things you can see is Everyone’s Worried About Eve. Today we’re finding out more..

1. Let's begin by pitching your show at the Ed Fringe, tell us about it?

Everyone’s Worried About Eve is a neurodivergent comedy-drama about an Autistic woman who transforms her life into a sitcom to avoid all her problems!

Ever wanted to escape your life and become one of your favorite sitcom characters? Eve did!

But Eve’s rose-tinted world begins to unravel, can she keep this facade up? 

2. Where did you draw your influences from for this piece?

Unsurprisingly, by watching a lot of sitcoms! But I particularly took inspiration from Miranda, Friends and Seinfeld when writing the show. They’ve always been chicken soup for the soul on bad days.

This is how I came up with the name by taking classic sitcoms titles such as  ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and creating ‘Everyone’s Worried About Eve’.

I wanted to create a twist on sitcom tropes and what has always intrigued me about them is the direct address to an audience through the screen.  It’s always just a given you don’t question,  I wanted to use the surreal aspect of sitcoms and answer why our beloved sitcom characters do this and in Eve’s case we find this out later on. This is partly why we paid homage to The Matrix as I was inspired by the concept of this other world you don’t know you’re clocked into.

3. What are the challenges of bringing a piece to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?

‘Alexa play Money Money Money by Abba’

But all jokes aside,  As we all know Edinburgh Fringe is expensive!

I would also say that because of all the different aspects of creating, marketing and producing a show, you do occasionally feel like Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, just a whole one-man band banging at your cymbals to get this piece to work.

However, I’ve been very lucky that I've had a tremendous amount of support from friends and family when it all gets a bit much. Also, Bert is a happy one-man band so at times like that you’ve just got to remind yourself that it's for a reason because I’ve been so happy making this piece and seeing how it’s evolved.

4. What can audiences expect from your show?

Plenty of laughs! After all, it is a sitcom with plenty of chuckles and lots of silliness. We also think you will never look at M&Ms the same way again!

I think audiences can expect something for the neurodivergent community to relate to. We touch upon masking, over-stimulation and overall how it’s different for neurodivergent people to approach the difficult parts of life.  Everyone’s Worried About Eve tackles how loss can affect someone who’s Autistic like Eve.

5. What are you most looking forward to during your time in Edinburgh for the festival?

I’m really above all excited to see all the great material out there. There are so many talented artists I want to see. So I’m just really excited for new writing and of course, a pina colada in Assembly Gardens doesn’t hurt!

6. Why is it important to create a neurodivergent show for this festival?

I think the Neurodiverse Review puts it brilliantly ‘nothing about us, without us’. I want to raise awareness of Autism and Autistic narratives.  I'm so excited to see each individual, neurodivergent story being brought to the festival. There is such a mass of wide-ranging narratives which is just ridiculously wonderful.

At the moment Neurodivergence as a topic is on the rise, when I was younger saying I was autistic felt like a swear word and I often tried to hide it. So it’s just really pleasing to see material that celebrates it. So I guess if not now,  when?

7. Where can people come and see ‘Everyone’s Worried About Eve’?

Everyone’s Worried About Eve is on at Greenside Riddle’s Court , Willow Studio at 16:20. It’s just on the mile and at a delightful venue. I can’t wait to show you Eve’s world!