Edinburgh Fringe Special: Lisa Jên Brown
The Welsh actor, writer and singer-songwriter on hit show Double Drop.
Morning…
…and welcome to another Edinburgh Fringe Special issue of The Crush Bar. Throughout August, instead of one big interview every two weeks, I am sending out a short Q&A every few days - and each one is going to be with someone connected to an Edinburgh Fringe show I think is worth shouting about!
This one is with Lisa Jên Brown - the Welsh actor, writer and singer-songwriter behind Double Drop, which was on at outdoor venue MultiStory earlier in the month. Its Edinburgh run is now over, but you can still listen to an earlier, audio version here, and producing company Dirty Protest Theatre has another show available online - Rhiannon Boyle’s Kill Me Now - that is well worth catching.
You can read my four-star review of Double Drop here - and there’s some more info on the show and the people behind it below. Before that: if you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet - and you want to get it sent straight to your inbox as soon as it is published - then you can do so via this button…
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That’s it for now. See you at the bottom.
Q&A: Lisa Jên Brown
Lisa Jên Brown is an actor, writer and musician originally from Bethesda in North Wales. Alongside regular appearances on stage and screen, she is the lead singer of award-winning alternative folk band 9Bach - alongside husband-and-guitarist Martin Hoyland and best-friend-and-fellow-vocalist Mirain Haf Roberts.
Her play Double Drop was originally written for Ritual - a podcast series created during lockdown by Dirty Protest Theatre, together with the National Theatre of Wales, Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre, and the BBC. Now, though, Dirty Protest have adapted it into an in-person production, which was staged at the Edinburgh Fringe’s outdoor venue MultiStory earlier this month and will - fingers crossed - arrive at other festivals and theatres in the near-future.
Directed by Dirty Protest’s Catherine Paskell and starring Brown and her band-mate Roberts, Double Drop is a infectiously exuberant piece of gig-theatre set in rural Wales in the 1990s. Roberts plays Esmi, a young girl torn between her love of drug-fuelled rave-dancing and her responsibilities towards her traditional Welsh roots, with Brown amusingly inhabiting all the other characters. It all comes entertainingly to a head during one Eisteddfod…
Fergus Morgan: Where did Double Drop come from? Is it autobiographical at all?
Lisa Jên Brown: Double Drop is quite semi-autobiographical, yes! Of course, I loved and miss the rave scene as it was, and as I look back I realise it was one of the happiest times of my life. I always write from the heart so I guess that will inevitably mean there is always truth in it.
Then there is the love-hate relationship with the Eisteddfod and its connotations, and the contrast between it being one-of-a-kind and something to celebrate, crossed with its elitist and middle-class connotations! Arghhhh! It's intense! To find your tribe within both those cultures is something personal to me, yes, and a story I wanted to tell.
FM: I love how music is used in the play, almost turning it into a gig or a concert at times. Was that something you consciously wanted to do? Could you ever imagine performing Double Drop at a music festival or something? I definitely could!
LJB: I always write rhythmically. It's always the music in the words that urges me to put pen to paper. I sing and I write music, and to me, the tension and release you get in dance music just makes me explode with joy. So, when I write, I do tend to write it TO the music.
Both Mirain and me have historically sang together since we were tiny, too. We voice-vibe together all the time! We are also in a band together called 9Bach, so for story that combines both our childhoods, it made sense to colour it with songs.
I would love to perform this with 9Bach as a full band live on the stage, in a rave, in a festival, where hundreds of audience members are invited on the stage to dance as druids!
FM: Dirty Protest is such a great company. What do you think makes it special?
LJB: It's the support, the love for brilliant stories, and endless dedication to new writing! Everyone wants to work with Dirty Protest because they are so committed to creating work that's edgy, relevant, daring, punchy and brilliant!
The dramaturg support you receive with new writing is immense from both Catherine [Paskell] and Tim [Price] and there is no-one doing what they are doing. This is theatre-making at its best, where you leave your ego way behind and everyone gets stuck in together. There's an energy here, and the core of it is folk desperate to make exciting theatre. We are so lucky to have them in Wales!
FM: How have you found your experience at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?
LJB: It has been phenomenal. I have nothing to compare it with, as I've never been before, but what a place! MultiStory has been a beautiful home to us the whole week, with all the staff and technicians being top-notch and just lovely. What a view! We've been sharing a stage with a castle! Come oooooaaaannn! What a treat!
There's been a few epic downpours and Mirain and I have been so worried about our audiences that we've been running off to fetch our personal ponchos to give to people, and that's just added to the love that we've all experienced together this week.
I never want to leave Edinburgh! Or the fringe! I want to live in Pollock Halls student accommodation, eating from the cake shop and drinking Taiwanese tea forever, and casually walk down to MultiStory every day to be a 16-year-old raving in quarries for the rest of my days.
Double Drop’s Edinburgh Fringe run has ended, but you can listen to the audio version here. Rhiannon Boyle’s Kill Me Now - Dirty Protest Theatre’s other Edinburgh Fringe show - is available via Summerhall online until August 21st.
Bye for now…
I will be back with another Edinburgh Fringe special issue of The Crush Bar in a few days time. Meanwhile, if you are after some other festival recommendations, then check out my second review round-up in The Stage. And, if you could give this newsletter a wee share, that’d be grand. Thanks.
Right. I’m off to do a walking-audio-play-thing at the Traverse Theatre - and I’m wondering whether I am allowed to bring my dog with me. Guess we’ll find out!
Fergus x