We enjoyed sitting down with Ruby Carr, Funny Women Comedy Writing Award winner in 2022, to talk about her upcoming show at the Soho Rising Festival in February 2024.
1. How have you found being part of the Soho Rising Festival and the various programmes Soho Theatre offers for artists creating new work?
I felt so honoured to be picked to be a part of Soho Rising 2024. The cohort this year is amazing and I feel privileged to be amongst them! The support and guidance from Soho Theatre has been wonderful and I am looking forward to being able to bring my show to such a respected venue.
I participated in Soho Theatre’s Sketch Lab. I picked this course because I was looking to expand my performance skills and challenge myself with something new. It was the best choice – I was with a brilliant group who made me laugh so much. I felt so supported and together we made something amazing. I highly recommend Soho Theatre Labs!
2. How did you come up with the idea of delving into the world of eBay – what inspired you to explore the weird and wonderful aspects of this online marketplace?
I have been an eBay fan and a frugal queen for a very long time. I fit the stereotype of a poor artist very well. I am someone who will deeply examine every purchase I make, making sure I get the best deal and quality. It has become a running joke with my friends that if you compliment me about an item of clothing, it is pretty good odds I will say that I got it for 99p from eBay.
Because of that, I have been scouring the far corners of eBay for YEARS and then showing my friends weird eBay auctions I find in the deep recesses of the site.
Sometimes sellers will share unnecessary photos or go hard in the description. Not everyone is a salesman, but they are all storytellers. Then one day someone said “Why isn’t this a show?”
3. Any sneak peeks you can share with us as to what eBay subcultures we might expect to discover?
It’s hard to gauge what people would find weird to be selling on eBay because I’m never sure what people’s base level is.
Some people would only think of buying phones on eBay.
Some people clothes.
Some people unconfirmed used napkins by celebrities.
People sell everything on eBay.
During lockdowns, lots of people got into art and sold their fever dream lockdown pieces on eBay. I found one guy selling his DIY survival gear, and the description made it sound like he was going to hunt you down. I found brothers selling their older sister’s belongings. I found people selling water from a closed-down log flume ride at Disney.
At a recent show, I performed this bit at the start about hypothetically buying multiple lizard enclosures. And a lady came up to me at the end and said she is the person buying multiple lizard enclosures, because she needed them to store bats! She then told me about the bidding battle between ecologists for those lizard enclosures. It was amazing, and it made me realise that “normal” on eBay and in the real world, really doesn’t exist. It’s all relative and everyone’s idea of “normal” is different.
4. How do you navigate the balance between humour and genuine fascination when presenting the eccentricities of eBay subcultures?
This is something I have worked very hard on! In an early version of the show, audience members would unprompted raise their hands to ask questions and it turned more into a documentary than a stand-up show. I love that my audience has always been as hooked and fascinated by the things I have found as me.
The show is fundamentally about how people are selling and why that is important to me.
The reason I get so caught up in these auctions is because they are also selling a little part of their life. As a performer and storyteller, I love seeing new ways of telling stories and more importantly, new ways of marketing (come to my show please!).
You can buy tickets to Ruby’s show here: Ruby Carr: eBae – Soho Theatre