Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#130): Connor McKenna, SELTZER BOY

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 Connor McKenna to find out more about Seltzer Boy.

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

Seltzer Boy is a one-man dark comedy which is finally brave enough to ask the question: why can’t we, as a species, get enough of fizzy beverages? It’s a play that’s nominally about Seltzer Boy’s undying love for flavored seltzer water, but that also investigates why he can’t get enough of it, and how that relates to the delicate relationship he has with his body, what he puts into it, and why. He takes the audience, TED-talk style, on a carbonated adventure through growing up overweight during the childhood obesity panic of the mid 2000s, his battles with disordered eating, and the ways in which he tries to feel comfortable in his own skin. In the end, he has to ask: How can one come to accept their body when all they know is how to hate it?

The show was largely inspired by A, wanting to proselytize about the wonder that is flavored seltzer water (and share my extensive catalogue and opinions about various brands, flavors etc.) and B, to share my experience with disordered eating and body dysmorphia. It’s one of those things that you’re not quite sure how to get out there, to talk about, but it’s a topic I want to be discussed more, especially by men. So I figured, if no one else is gonna do it, I might as well! One’s relationship to one’s body and appearance is so deeply personal and vulnerable, I feel like I would do the subject a disservice unless I was really honest about my own self-image and feelings about my body. So a solo show felt like a perfect medium to just be myself, to be frank, and get to the core of the issue. 

2. What made you want to bring this work to the Fringe this year?
Like most obnoxious theatre people, taking my work to Edinburgh Fringe has always been a dream of mine. To be in Edinburgh, surrounded by artists and audiences from all over, seeing all kinds of shows and being able to share my work with them! It’s an incredible cavalcade of art and theatre!

But why this year in particular? Because everything came together: the team, the show, it just seemed perfect. I met Greg through a scratch in November 2024 night where he directed me in an excerpt of Seltzer Boy. He immediately understood the vision of the show. I had an incredible producer with Fringe experience on my side, who was unendingly supportive. And as a creative, I was just anxious to get it in front of people! The perfect time is always when you’re the most excited about an idea. And with the rise in phenomenal one-person shows and having seen some really great ones (such as Raymond Wilson’s I Hope Your Flowers Bloom) I was given the confidence to actually do something this personal and unabashedly myself, to tell my story and feel like people would be receptive to it.

3. How would you describe your show in three words?
Candid, Convoluted, and Carbonated!

4. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your performance?
I’m really hoping that the audience, especially the men in the audience, will come away with a model to open themselves up to thinking about their relationship with their body. And if you have a difficult or troubled relationship, that you don’t need to suddenly start loving yourself or the way you look, but rather that progress can come from a sort of accepting neutrality; your body is what is, it does what it does, and however it does or doesn’t look has no bearing on your worth as a person.

Also that flavored seltzer is great and that it should be a bigger thing here in the UK! That’s the main thing. 

5. What’s your top tip for surviving the Fringe?
You just gotta take care of yourself! Prioritize your wellbeing, both physical and mental!

Plus, I’m getting one of those nose/mouth steamer things to help take care of my voice; gonna be giving my throat a daily schvitz so I don’t sound like a chainsmoker by mid-August.

6. Where and when can people see your show?

The Snug at Paradise in Augustine’s! 11:20am, August 2nd to 16th (off 3rd and 10th)!