Twitter: AlisonLarkinTEA
1 What is your Fringe show about?
It’s a funny, life-affirming show about love, loss and hope. I found true love for the first time in my 50’s, with an Indian Climate scientist who had also immigrated to the US. Then, five days after we decided to marry, he died. Then something even more surprising happened. Instead of wanting to hide under the bed and never come out again I found that I wanted to live more fully than ever. Huh? When Archbishop Desmond Tutu found out about it, he insisted I return to comedy to tell this story because, he said, ‘it will bring hope.’ So I did.
2 How many times/many years have you appeared at the Fringe?
1984, 1985, 2000 and now in 2024.
3 What’s your most memorable moment from the Fringe?
When I performed my last autobiographical solo show about finding my birth mother in Bald Mountain, Tennessee, I was six months pregnant with my now twenty-three-year-old son and a little on the clumsy side. There was a moment in the show when I was supposed to spread ketchup on a hotdog with a gun, but I bumped into a chair and the ketchup spilled over the white pant suit of a woman in the front row instead. The audience were hysterical and the more they laughed, the funnier it got. I dimly recall dabbing at the woman’s suit with a teabag in an attempt to wipe it off, which only made it worse. Fortunately the woman was laughing too and declined my offer to take her suit to the dry cleaner, and all I can say, if she’s reading this, is thank you and I’m still sorry.
4 What’s the worst thing about the Fringe?
The fact that it only goes on for a month.
5 If you were not a performer what would you be doing?
Narrating audiobooks and writing novels.
6 How do you prepare for a performance?
I hike up mountains to make sure I’m in strong physical shape. I learn my lines really well so I can improvise with the audience and return to the show easily no matter what happens. And, just before a performance, I’ll drink a cup of green tea. Wild, I know.
7 Favourite thing about being in Edinburgh
The danger and electricity that’s in the air when thousands of creative risk takers take a jump with no net and no way of knowing if they’ll crash or end up with a hit on their hands.
8 What’s the most Scottish thing you’ve ever done?
My Dad was Scottish and he taught me Scottish Country Dancing, which I was never very good at, but I’ve taken it up again since he died, because I miss him and he loved it.
9 Favourite Scottish food/drink?
Smoked Salmon and Oatcakes washed down with a wee glass of Drambuie
10 Sum up your show in three words
Love, Loss, Hope.
Alison Larkin: Grief, A Comedy is at Assembly George Square Studio 2 @ 2.10pm
For tickets go to www.edfringe.com
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