Holly Beasley-Garrigan brings her anarchic solo show to Edinburgh Fringe and questions the space open to theatre-makers who grew up skint.
Image credit: Samuel Donnelly.
In 1998 a much loved British sweet changed their name to... we don’t say that name here.
In her debut solo show, Opal Fruits, Holly Beasley-Garrigan asks what it means to be making theatre as an artist who grew up skint: to have a stake in two worlds but to feel as though you don’t really fit into either.
Opal Fruits is an unpredictable solo show about the fetishisation of the feral female, spliced with pick ‘n’ mix, politics and UK Garage.
Previously previewed as a work in progress at VAULT festival in 2019, it was then supported by Bristol Old Vic Ferment and Pleasance Futures, to undergo significant redevelopment. It brought together an expanded creative team and a focus on employing artists from low socio-economic backgrounds. Opal Fruits is about class, nostalgia and five generations of women in Holly’s family who came of age on the same council estate in South London.
Inspired by 10 years battling impostor syndrome, fitting in and winning awards with various ‘middle-class’ theatre companies, Beasley-Garrigan wants to explore the complexities and contradictions faced by artists who grew up skint. Opal Fruits is an attempt to simultaneously critique and make use of the platform that Beasley-Garrigan has now, to elevate the voices of the women who shaped her.
Speaking today, Holly Beasley-Garrigan said: ‘There’s been a big push in recent years to support more work by ‘working-class’ artists. I’m one of them! Opal Fruits explores the conflict this presents in practice for performers, like me, who feel pressured to commodify their identities for entertainment. It asks: Who is this really benefiting? Do I have a responsibility to be making socially conscious work just because of my background? Is it even possible to make a show about class without contributing to problems of tokenism and othering? … Let’s find out!’
The show is for those who don’t see themselves adequately represented on stage, whose voices get lost. It is for people who might not ordinarily go to the theatre and for Holly’s mum, who died while she was making it, before she had a chance to interview her.
Opal Fruits will run from 3-28 August, as part of Pleasance’s ‘Edinburgh National Partnerships Initiative’, delivered by Pleasance Futures at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.
It plays at Bristol Old Vic's Weston Studio from 7-10 Sep.
This project is supported by Arts Council England, Bristol Old Vic Ferment, Pleasance, Knowle West Media Centre and Streatham Space Project.
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