Performer: Emmy Fyles
Photograph by: Joe Twigg
Show: Live Your Best Life
Venue: Laughing Horse @ Hanover Tap (Wee Tap)
Promoter: Indie

Tell me about your Edinburgh show.

The idea for my Edinburgh show was borne from the fact that 2018 began with a string of disasters which left me feeling pretty rubbish. It was around this time I started noticing that the phrase ‘Live Your Best Life’ seemed to be everywhere – on t-shirts, in advertising and, most of all, plastered across social media. I set myself the mission to follow whatever advice the internet had to offer to see if I, too, could learn to live my best life. (And then write a comedy show about it). You’ll have to come and watch the show to see whether I achieved my goal or not!

Tell me about your first gig.

My first gig was at the Frog & Bucket in Manchester and my set was about a failed burlesque class, a Valentine’s Day date gone wrong and how I secretly wanted to be a chav (it was funnier than it sounds).

Do you have any rituals before going on stage?

Drink too much water. Have lots of wees. Panic that I haven’t had enough wees.

Tell me about your best and worst review.

BEST: I can’t remember the exact wording (I don’t have it laminated or anything….) but I did a comedy play last year and the reviewer said some very nice things about me being a strong comic actor.

WORST: I used to be in a sketch group called Kooky Babooshka and the night the infamous Steve Bennett from Chortle came to watch us, a dog ran across the stage. He gave us a very unimpressed 3 stars.

During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?

My plan is to get my flatmate and fellow performer to vet them for me first… I’ll know by her reaction whether to bother reading them or not!

How do you feel about reviewers generally?

As long as they say nice things about me, I think they’re great.

In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?  

Hmm. This is kind of a tough one to answer… firstly, I want to say I don’t find his video funny because that kind of humour just isn’t my cup of tea and it made me incredibly uncomfortable hearing a guy repeatedly utter the sentence ‘gas the Jews’… BUT… if the question is around whether he was intending to incite racial hatred then, no, I don’t think he is. He provides context at the start of the video by explaining he’s trying to turn his girlfriend’s pug into the ‘least cute’ thing imaginable – a Nazi – so we know what his views on the matter are. Whether I find it funny or not (and, again, I don’t) I think it’s a worry for comedians when a joke is being judged in a courtroom completely devoid of the context.

Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?

I don’t think any subject should be off-limits – it just depends how you deal with it. I actually think comedy provides a brilliant platform for us to discuss difficult or sensitive subjects. I used to run an open mic night and have had to tell comedians not to come back because they offended the audience so badly but, more often than not, that was down to them being offensively crap comedians rather than because they were being particularly controversial.

Have you ever gone too far?

I’m more of a lover, not a fighter when it comes to my comedy style. I did used to play a character called ‘Jizz Girl’ which I’m sure my Mum felt was a step too far but no, I’m definitely not someone who courts controversy through comedy (even though I sometimes enjoy comedians who do!)

Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.

I actually think my first ever gig was possibly my best (or at least my favourite). To my complete surprise, I absolutely smashed it and it was the moment I realised how powerful it feels making a room full of people laugh. I just hope that ‘Live Your Best Life’ goes as well as that gig did!