Catherine King, BSL interpreter
I was 17 when I learned to sign. I learned to sign because I saw it in the street essentially, and just really liked it. It took me another 13 years to become an interpreter, and I have been doing the job now for 24 years.
My first job on stage was in 1988. It was the pantomime at the Kilmarnock Palace theatre. I became a freelance interpreter in 2001, which meant I could take on anything I wanted to take on, and oddly enough that is the first Fringe I did. I worked with the comedian Adam Hills, and have worked with him ever since. This year will be my 18th year there – I’m beginning to feel like the grandma of the Fringe!
Preparing to interpret a comedy show is a long process. I go and see the show, I record the show, and then I spend about 20—30 hours translating that show before I go near the stage with the comedian.
My job is to take every joke and strain it through a mesh to find the essential funny and then repackage it into something that works culturally for the deaf community. If you have a positive relationship with the comedian it really helps.
Timing is crucial in comedy. Building up a relationship with the comedians has really helped because I am able to talk about comedy with them, and they can help me if a have an issue translating something. For example, some words take longer to sign than they do to say in English, and vice versa, so sometimes you have to change the words in order to get the same punchline across and at the same time.
The main point for me is to do the best job possible, to make sure my timing works so that if there is a visual punchline, I have thrown the focus over to the comedian.
BSL users should walk out the door at the end laughing at what the comedian said, not laughing at what the interpreter did. When the comedian ad libs, all I can do is hold onto their coat tails and hope for the best.
Catherine King will be signing at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Craig Hill, Daniel Sloss and Jimeoin at the Pleasance at EICC from Thursday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here