We sat down for an exclusive chat with Sam Nicoresti ahead of their show Baby Doomer heading to Pleasance during the Edinburgh Fringe – 30th July – 24th August. Tickets here.
Can you summarise your show in two lines?
It’s a stand-up show, which I’ve never done before, where I just talk and nothing weird happens in the room – for me, that’s the big concept. It’s also about skirt suits, and change, and how those two topics interact across a variety of routines.
The show tackles mental health, identity, breakdowns, joy, and weird propositions at a sperm bank – how do you strike that balance between vulnerability and absurdity when exploring so many different topics?
Being vulnerable is absurd, and visa versa. There are no points in the show where I try and manufacture a moment of catharsis or whatever, if something resonates emotionally it’s a good thing, but I’m not seeking it. These are just thoughts and stories that I’m attempting to weave together and hopefully a tone emerges by the end.
Was there a particular story or moment in Baby Doomer that felt hardest to tell – but most important to include?
Honestly, if something was hard to tell I tended to remove it. Some of the most embarrassing stories just flowed out, and generally I was finding that if something was hard to tell then that resistance was coming from not wanting to place it in front of an audience. I wanted to make a comedy show, so I’ve been pretty harsh on my natural tendency to indulge. Having said that, there’s a bit about Sméagol and a bit about chosen names that I keep trying to make work against the odds. I’m convinced those bits are worthy.
You’ve done everything from cult comedy nights to viral monologues – how do those different spaces influence your writing and performance?
Ha, it’s a viral monologue now is it? That clip (I assume you’re referring to the wagamama loos) is the sort of “45-minute mark crux” of my last show, I posted it out of context in light of the recent Supreme Court rulings because it kind of summed something up about the whole thing, but it exists within a context of an orchestrated recording of a full piece of work. I suppose those two things, a show and a gig, have tension. I would never do that bit at a gig, because that’s a shared space and the audience aren’t going to emotionally indulge you like that. A show is your world, and you can spend more time on ideas, which is rewarding, but a gig will establish which parts of an idea are actually funny. I used to write show-first, but with Baby Doomer a lot of the ideas emerged from having fun at gigs.
What’s one thing you wish more people understood about navigating breakdowns – not just personally, but artistically?
The breakdown isn’t such a huge part of the show anymore, because it was weighing things down. Maybe there’s a lesson there? Dissociation can feel terrifying, and it brings into question some fundamentals about who you are, what you are, what any of this is… the important thing is to find your thread and rebuild your narrative because that’s the core of who you are, outside of this sort of constantly moving moment. You have to embrace change without letting it pull you off centre. Same for the show. I’m not forcing it to be about something it doesn’t want to be about. I’m telling stories and allowing the ideas to emerge.
What’s the most memorable response someone’s given to Wokeflake or Baby Doomer?
I’ve had some pretty cool messages about Wokeflake. I wanted that show to capture some of the feelings of early transition, when everything feels so unresolvable and huge, and I think people have resonated with that. But mostly I remember when a woman coming out of the show in Edinburgh casually mentioned we had the same last name before disappearing into the crowd. Well, Nicoresti is an uncommon name and I’ve never met anyone with it that I’m not related to, so I think about that woman a lot. Who the hell was she?