Emma Sidi is back at the Edinburgh Fringe with a new show, Telenovela. After the success of last year’s show Character Breakdown Emma’s new show is not for the faint hearted. Inspired by the dramatic beyond reason Mexican telenovela, this is transglobal passion for the comedy stage. We talked to Emma about her new show, her many projects and ambition…
Funny Women: Tell us about your new Edinburgh show Telenovela
Emma Sidi: This year’s show is a character comedy show, more or less about the epic drama of TV seeping into the banal drama of these characters’ everyday lives. Put more simply, I basically do enact a Mexican soap opera with the audience. It’s a lot of death, drugs, duplicity and dancing all with a hispanic soap soundtrack. ‘Telenovela’ is the Spanish word for soap opera, but with more drama than you can shake a stick at.
FW: What does a telenovela have that a tv soap doesn’t?
ES: You’ve got to have the 80’s synth in the background, of course, whenever a character realises something, gets angry or, feels anything at all. Then there’s the fighting, endless slapping, the villainous mother-in-law who wears an eye-patch, etc. If hispanic telenovelas were allowed to enter the British Soap Awards, neither Eastenders nor Corrie would ever see a trophy again.
FW: Tell us about the mini series you’re in, Sweet Home Lahnsteineringa.
ES: It stars James Acaster and is the sequel to his mini-series Sweet Home Ketteringa, in which he re-discovered his home town. In this year’s series we went to Lahnstein, Kettering’s German twin town . We filmed it in a week in this town by the Rhein and and I play almost myself, as a bratty production runner turned interpreter. See, almost myself. My German is terrible, which I am very pleased to say is absolutely evident from the series. Watch it if you like James Acaster doing his thing and/or endless examples of Anglo-German miscommunication.
FW: You write, direct, and act comedy! What inspires you to be so creative?
ES: It’s both wanting to do as much as I can, as well as treading water with my bank balance. I feel like if I did’t do any one of those things I’d be that bit closer to my overdraft, and that is a quick fire way to be as creative as you can muster. Those pitta breads aren’t gonna buy themselves, you know.
FW: What are your comedy ambitions?
ES: I find with whatever I watch on TV – and I’m sure this is the case for most comedians – that it either inspires me to the point of wanting to quit now as I’ll never do anything as good as that, or depress me to the point of kicking sofa legs, and any of the depressing comedy stuff out there feels like it comes from a cynical, strategic place as opposed to comedy which the creators themselves find funny. In that sense, my ambition is to be able to earn a bit (as I said, just enough for my pitta breads and maybe Pop Tarts) by creating what I genuinely find funny, whether that’s sitcoms or live shows. Both are right up my street.
FW: Who are your favourite funny women?
ES: When Victoria Wood died this year, I didn’t write anything on social media because I didn’t have the words and I still don’t. I grew up reading my Mum’s copies of her script books and listening to cassettes of her, Julie Walters et al. I most need to delete or re-write what I’ve got down on the page because I’ll have realised that I’m just imitating her in words, style, tone. She completely inspired my writing and desire to do it.
I also live in a very exciting time where there are female comedians everywhere, who are my contemporaries AND my favourites. Pretty good going, right? I’m regularly performing alongside Lazy Susan, Alison Thea Skot, Lolly Adefope, Natasia Demetriou and Ellie White, and they rock my modern world.
Emma Sidi’s Telenovela will be at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 3rd – 28th August (not Wednesday 17th) at 8.15pm at the Pleasance Courtyard, Pleasance That. For more information and tickets click here!
