Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#104): Valentina Toth, FATAL FLOWER

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 Valentina Toth to find out more about Fatal Flower.

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

FATAL FLOWER is a tragicomic, over-the-top and musical ode to the hysterical woman. It’s also my debut solo show - I’m Valentina Tóth: a Dutch actress, singer, comedian, songwriter, theatre maker and former child prodigy concert pianist (!). In Fatal Flower, I explore the clichés and boundaries of womanhood in today’s society.

Blending opera, theatre, cabaret comedy, I bring to life a range of ‘grotesque’ and ‘hysterical’ female characters: Medea, the Queen of the Night, a Disney Channel star gone wrong, and a terrifying Russian piano teacher, to name a few. The show draws on my own life - from my childhood and early piano career - but it also dives into deeper themes: sexual assault, mother-daughter dynamics, jealousy, revenge, and the complex relationship many women (myself included) have with their bodies.

My inspiration came from many directions, but above all from a deep urgency to speak - as a woman, as a feminist, and as someone deeply concerned about the state of the world.

The figure of the “hysterical woman” gives me a powerful lens through which to explore issues I care deeply about: women being told they’re “too much,” not being believed when they speak about abuse or misconduct, the systemic injustice of the Dutch childcare benefits scandal (akin to the UK Post Office scandal) — situations that make me furious, and that I want to explore in a theatrical way. I think it’s time for the hysterical woman to take center stage.

Plus, I’ve always had a soft spot for loud, unruly, larger-than-life female characters -flawed, unapologetic, powerful. And while “the hysterical woman” great umbrella to explore serious themes, it also gives me the freedom to go big: to be funny, tragic, grotesque, raw. The kind of roles, I believe, I was born to play.

With this show, I’ve found a form that lets me bring all my talents together: classical music, singing, songwriting, acting, theatre-making, and writing. I draw from burlesque, drag, opera, operetta, and old-school revues. But cabaret, especially, is where I feel most at home. It’s such a seductive art form — you draw the audience in with laughter, and once they’re close, you can either please them or punch them in the gut. Laughter lays the perfect foundation for tragedy, and vice versa. At its core, Fatal Flower is about female rage. About the things that make me angry, or hysterical, if you will.

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

I don’t want to brag… but I’m going to anyway! Back in the Netherlands and Belgium, where my debut show Fatal Flower originated, it was received far beyond my wildest dreams. I got 5-star reviews from the three biggest Dutch newspapers, which praised me as a “sensational performer” who brings multiple layers to a comedic show — feminist, socially critical, yet also “deeply personal and funny.”

Thanks to that response, I had my breakthrough back home - and with that came the confidence to finally pursue a long-time dream: performing at the Edinburgh Fringe.

It felt like the perfect moment to translate the show into English. I am really excited(and a little terrified!) to see how my show resonates outside of the Netherlands and Belgium. Performing in a language that is not my mother tongue, in another country, at such a massive festival - and doing it day after day - is a huge challenge. But I love a challenge, and I’ve already learned so much from the process already.

And honestly - I live for theatre, it’s everything to me! I live for performing. So the idea of performing every single day doesn’t terrify me in the slightest. I’m thrilled to be part of this wild, beautiful celebration of theatre.

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

Operatic Vulnerable Chaos!

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

I want the show to feel like a roaring, thundering liberation - not just for me, but for everyone in the audience. In Dutch, we say: “a show with a laugh and a tear” - meaning it’s a show filled with sadness, laughter and everything. That, to me, is what theatre should be: light and dark, playful and painful, absurd and sincere and everything in between. We came, we cried, we laughed, and we left feeling grateful to have truly felt something.

What would be an even greater gift, though, is if the show also makes people think. To reflect on the position of women in society, on how we label and dismiss hysteria, and on how we treat women - and each other - in this world. When I perform the show in the Netherlands or Belgium, I often hear from women in the audience that they found it liberating, that they felt seen in their struggles. To me, that’s the highest compliment I could receive.

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

Well… this is actually my very first Fringe as a performer, so I wouldn’t dare claim to be an expert just yet! I have visited many times as an audience member, though. If I had to guess, I’d say: allow yourself to really enjoy the experience. See as many shows as you can, meet performers from all over the world, explore Edinburgh’s amazing bookshops, and… indulge in the incredible food the city has to offer! I’m a huge mac and cheese lover — and since I’m from the Netherlands, I only get to6. eat the real deal when I’m in the UK, which is usually when I’m at the Fringe. So that’s definitely part of my survival plan!

6. Where and when can people see your show?

At the Edinburgh Fringe, you can catch Fatal Flower every day at Summerhall (Main Hall) from August 1st - except on the 12th and 19th, when I’ll be taking a day off!

And after that… I’ll be back on tour in the Netherlands and Belgium from September again.

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