Award-winning impressionist, singer and comedian Jess Robinson is having a busy year. Fresh from publishing her memoir Life Is Rosi, appearing at Hay Festival and touring her critically acclaimed show Elton Reimagined, Jess is also stepping into the world of keynote speaking, with a forthcoming TEDx talk exploring confidence, identity and what happens after spending years becoming everyone else.
Best known for Dead Ringers, Spitting Image, The Last Leg and Britain’s Got Talent, she is currently juggling tour life, corporate hosting, voice work and the Edinburgh Fringe with varying degrees of glamour and caffeine.
How did you get into comedy?
My career has largely been built on saying ‘Yes! I can do that’ before I knew how to do something and then panicking privately afterwards.
I got into impressions completely by accident when I was cast in Little Voice in my twenties and confidently announced that yes, of course I could do lots of voices.
I could not.
So I learned. Fast.
That slightly reckless decision somehow led to Dead Ringers, Spitting Image, The Last Leg, and twenty years of becoming everybody else for a living.
I’ve realised confidence very rarely arrives first. Usually you just have to start and hope your talent catches up before anyone notices!
Tell us about your comedy style.
Musical, observational, warm and irreverent.
I love comedy that feels joyful and inclusive. The kind where everyone feels in on the joke rather than the butt of it.
My favourite thing is hearing an audience collectively lose their minds because they suddenly recognise a voice. That split second where everyone goes: “Oh my God… it’s HER.”
There’s also usually some emotional whiplash.
One minute Britney Spears is singing Elton John and everybody’s crying with laughter.
The next, Amy Winehouse sings Tiny Dancer and suddenly someone in Row D is unexpectedly teary.
I like to manipulate a bit of tonal chaos.
What’s your show about and where can we see it?
Elton Reimagined is essentially what happens when Elton John’s greatest songs are handed over to a wildly eclectic group of iconic women, from Pop princesses to stars of the silver screen to daytime TV queens, and somehow squeezed into a 5’3” woman in her 40s.
Think Kate Bush floating through Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Britney giving Bennie and the Jets a spin. Barbra Streisand turning I’m Still Standing into a massive Broadway anthem. It’s hugely camp, funny, uplifting and surprisingly moving.
ITV described it: “Like a mega concert with all your favourite stars.”
I’m touring the show around the UK before heading to my tenth Edinburgh Fringe this summer, where it’ll be at Assembly George Square Gardens from 5th-30th August at 7.15pm.
Honestly, if you love cabaret, Elton, big laughs, clever musicianship and women, I think you’ll have a very good time.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
I’m deeply inspired by women who take up space unapologetically.
Without sounding too mad, I’ve borrowed confidence from women my whole life. Liza Minnelli for bravery. Julie Andrews for calm authority. Beyoncé when I need to stop apologising. Mary Poppins for politely but firmly sorting things out.
Which accidentally became the basis of my TED talk later this year, Becoming Yourself (After Becoming Everyone Else), about confidence, identity and finding your own voice after years of performing everybody else’s.
Apparently after twenty years of impressions, people are finally interested in hearing from me. Terrifying.
Any advice for those taking their first show to Edinburgh?
The main one I totally swear by: Whether I’ve had a brilliant show or an awful one, I stop thinking about it at 11am the next day.
Before then I’m allowed to celebrate, wallow, overanalyse or briefly decide to retrain as a florist.
After 11am? Fresh day. Move on.
Edinburgh is a marathon and your nervous system will thank you.
What have you been working on? What’s next?
At the moment I seem to be doing several full-time jobs badly all at once.
I’m touring Elton Reimagined, hosting corporate events, voicing a couple of different animations, speaking to people with grown up jobs about confidence and identity, and trying to remember where I’ve put my phone roughly fourteen times a day.
I also recently published my memoir Life Is Rosi – Grandma, Me and our diaries at 23, about my grandmother who fled Nazi Germany and the surprising parallels between our lives.
And after the next series of Dead Ringers on Radio 4, I’ll be giving a TEDx talk called Becoming Yourself (After Becoming Everyone Else), which feels like a very fitting next chapter after twenty years of performing everybody else. Very exciting.
Keep up with Jess Robinson on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Tickets and more information for Elton Reimagined can be found here.
