Part romcom, part social autopsy, this new solo show satirises our obsession with ticking life’s boxes.
Ticket link here https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/mrs-gary-breath
Annie is offered £150,000 to get married before she turns 35. Be honest: at what figure did this stop being a comedy premise and start becoming a serious life decision?
This is a great question – the amount of money is undeniably tempting (as Annie says, she could buy 150,000 things from Poundland) but more than that, she feels the injustice of what is essentially bribery: If you conform to X, we’ll give you Y. Regardless your views on generational wealth (and that’s a whole other play, maybe!) Annie doesn’t believe her inheritance should be conditional. I think she’d go on this mad journey even for a tenner, just on principle.
The show pokes fun at modern marriage culture. With the rise of the “tradwife” aesthetic, why do you think we’re seeing such a fascination with traditional domestic ideals at a moment when women arguably have more choices than ever?
I think it’s probably a combination of a few things. Partly our growing obsession with aesthetic – how sepia footage of chickens in your yard looks on TikTok, for example, or a homecooked meal on a gingham table cloth on Instagram. Social media has a lot to answer for. But on a deeper level, I think the pace of modern life is leaving most women overwhelmed and overstimulated. You can see why a shift to ‘simpler’ times feels appealing, particularly when it’s largely being consumed via square snapshots or 60-second clips. Of course, the reality of running a household means spinning more plates than a Greek wedding, but no-one’s making money by showing the chicken poo all over the garden, or the screaming kids refusing your from-scratch focaccia.
Annie begins the story happily single, yet everyone around her seems determined to treat that as a problem. Do you think society has become more accepting of single women, or have the expectations simply become more subtle?
On the surface we’re more accepting, but the external noise is still deafening, particularly for straight women of a certain age. The optimist in me likes to think it’s because, as a society, we love love. We delight in occasions of romance and joy. But beneath that is something more cynical; not just deeply-engrained ideas about gender roles, but because globally, the wedding industry is a multi-billion-pound juggernaut – and fast approaching trillion-pound, a number that feels almost comic. Trillion isn’t a real word, is it?! But from the explosion of marriage-based reality TV to the celebrity weddings splashed across the internet, it’s easy to see why expectations remain so high. We face a daily bombardment, and it’s nearly impossible to take cover.
You play a whole cast of chaotic characters yourself. Was there one character who arrived fully formed, and another who fought you every step of the way?
I’ve never, ever before been able to say ‘this practically wrote itself!’ but most of these characters did arrive fairly fully formed. They just seemed to make sense in the context of the story – although I played around with some of the minor ones and borrowed a few mannerisms from people I know. A couple of friends have said after a show, ‘Hey, so-and-so really sounds like – ’ Better be careful of that actually, don’t want a defamation suit on my hands!
Beneath the comedy is a surprisingly serious question: how much of our life choices are genuinely ours, and how much are shaped by family expectations, financial pressures and social milestones?
Yes – again, I think we have the illusion of freedom but most of us wouldn’t know how to switch direction even if we wanted to. Almost everything we’re taught – at home, at school, in the media – it all leads to: school, job, relationship, marriage, kids, retirement, farewell. And is that even a bad thing? Not necessarily (I’m married with kids myself). Take the old Cereal Aisle example, for instance: we think we want options, but choosing between 100 cereals in the supermarket is a lot harder than choosing between Weetabix and Crunchy Nut. So my aim with Mrs Gary Breath hopefully isn’t to scorn the traditional path, only to open up the conversation about a different route. If that’s what you want.