Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#140): Smita Russell, ODDS ARE
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 Smita Russell to find out more about her show, Odds Are.
1. Can you begin by telling us about your show and what inspired it?
ODDS ARE is about the search for meaning in the inexplicable. It’s a show for anyone who’s ever asked: “Why me?” It’s about how I used myth, science, math (I know, it’s delightfully nerdy) and storytelling to make sense of a series of unfortunate events. And the inspiration? Two years ago, I had an itch to write and share. I needed to get the story out of my body and tell people, but I couldn’t motivate myself to finish a draft. I saw that The Moth — it’s a storytelling competition that’s huge in the US — had an upcoming event, and the hard deadline spurred me. I won that championship, which gave me courage. Over the next few months, I added to my script and went on to win every competition and festival. We also picked up legions of fans.
2. What made you want to bring this work to the Fringe this year?
After I won the Grand Prize at the United Solo Theatre Festival in November, I spoke with every performer, producer, director, dramaturg that I could wrangle a meeting with. The overwhelming advice was to take the show to Edinburgh. I applied in February, and Assembly accepted me in four days!
3. How would you describe your show in three words?
Humour, heartbreak, hope.
4. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your performance?
I want them to understand that how we choose to tell our stories matters. How we choose to frame things and how we characterise ourselves in the narrative — it matters. I hid things and lied for many years. I minimised terrible events because I didn’t want to be a blackhole for attention. But the act of telling a good story stops being about the person speaking and becomes a canvas for the stories of others. This is my longwinded way of saying I hope audiences come away from the show with a deeper understanding of how much power we have as storytellers.
5. What’s your top tip for surviving the Fringe?
Maintaining a sense of reckless optimism. There’s a great interview with John Oliver where he talks about his early-career Fringe experience. Once he opened his solo set to only four people in the audience, and they all snuck out within 10 minutes. John laughs when he tells it now, and we laugh with him, but man that must’ve been brutal!
Fringe has a collegiate atmosphere, but it’s also a battleground for audiences and attention. Doubt any show can survive without a naïve confidence that tomorrow is another day!
6. Where and when can people see your show?
I will be performing a full run at Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) at 14:55, daily!
X: @oddsare_show
INSTAGRAM: @oddsareshow
SHOW LINK: https://www.smitarussell.com/
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