Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#20): Moira Hamilton, W3: FILTHY FILTHY WITCHES

23 Jun

Conducted by Emmie for Theatre and Tonic

As anticipation builds for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025, we’re catching up with a range of exciting creatives preparing to bring their work to the world’s largest arts festival this August. In this series, we delve into the stories behind the shows, the inspiration driving the artists, and what audiences can expect.

Today we’re joined by Moira Hamilton about the show W3: Filthy Filthy Witches.

1. Can you begin by telling us about your show and what inspired it?

W3 is about three witches and a rich guy. Familiar story, I’m sure. It's about an aspiring billionaire and current inventor who finds himself on a polluted beach, and spends the next fifty minutes being absolutely terrorized by three nature spirits for his actions against their mother (earth). It's funny and weird, but at times it's also tragic. It was actually written by my father over a decade ago and taken to a few smaller theatre festivals in the US, where I’m originally from. I won’t speculate too much about his inspirations, but I know for certain one thing which does deepen the meaning of the show, so I’ll share that. My father and I are both from the city of Niagara Falls, which, in his early 20s, was the centre of news stories across the country for a massive chemical disaster sometimes known as the Love Canal Tragedy. Essentially, it was discovered that an entire neighbourhood of affordable housing and a primary school was built on top of an unregulated toxic waste dump, and the chemical company was dodging responsibility. The city was in an uproar, and people were dying from drinking the water, breathing the air, and playing in the dirt in the playground. Eventually the whole neighborhood was evacuated and walled off, as it remains to this day. W3 is too poetic in its nature to come right out and say “I’m a play about the Love Canal!”, and I think it would sell it short to say that anyways, but it's definitely a bit of context that's interesting to know. The script is pretty intentionally absurd, though, so giving too much more context is probably poor practice!

2. What made you want to bring this work to the Fringe this year?

This is a great question, right, because W3 was originally performed back in 2014 and once more in 2016, so why bring it back a decade later? A few reasons. The environment hasn’t stopped being abused, for one. Environmental protections are under attack in America, and the situation globally has only gotten worse. But it’s really not mostly the bad things that made me want to bring W3 back. I’ve been living in Scotland for three years now– this is my third Fringe. This is the first year with my own company, and Jamie, my dad, has always wanted to participate in Fringe– since before I was born. It only seemed natural to take this opportunity to elevate the work of my first theatre teacher, my first director. And I had so much fun working on this show the last two times I did it. I was 16 and 18. Now I'm 26 and a director and it's been rattling around in my head the whole time– it's my turn to give it a go! I flew back home and helped work out a fresh edit of the script to bring back to the rest of Martyr Theatre co, got the green light, and here we are! It's been so fun to revisit something again after so much time has passed, and I’m honestly just so glad that the script is seeing the stage lights again.

3. How would you describe your show in three words?

Absurd, Dirty, Timely

4. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your performance?

Plastic is part of our environment now, so you might as well look for poetry in garbage, too.

5. What’s your top tip for surviving the Fringe?

Do not try to race google maps to try to get to a show. If it says you won't make it in time, you won’t make it in time. Even if you walk fast! The streets will be crowded and you wont get a refund on the ticket, so just plan better tomorrow, and find something else to see.

6. Where and when can people see your show?

5:35 at Banshee Labyrinth’s Chamber Room from the 18th-24th of August! The show is part of PBH’s Free Fringe, so there’s no need to book a ticket. Just show up!

https://freefringe.org.uk/shows/w3-filthy-filthy-witches/