CONVERSATIONS WE SHOULD HAVE HAD

PRESENTED BY ROSIE WILBY

Award-winning comedian premieres her brand new show about a comedian writing a novel about being a comedian, and wonders... where is the line between truth and fiction?  

A comedian performs extracts of her unpublished autofictional novel.  

Her protagonist Lou is scratching out a precarious living on the competitive London comedy circuit. At a queer gig, she’s surprised when ambitious straight-passing colleague Nat seems interested in her. They embark on a secret relationship and dingy backstage rooms suddenly light up with possibility.   

However Lou feels uncomfortable when Nat gets her a gig at a straight venue run by sleazy promoter Alan. She’s less able to switch off her queerness and shape shift into what a mainstream-y weekend audience seems to want.   

And what forced Lou apart from her ex Dee? They’re still best friends and say ‘I love you’ every day, even now Dee has left their beloved Brixton for a job in New York. On a London work trip, she joins Lou for a picnic in Brockwell Park and they discuss the ‘accident’ that prompted Dee’s departure. But was it really an accident? Or were they the victims of a violent hate crime?   

In an imagined future where the book is a bestseller, the comedian has a series of conversations about her responsibilities as a writer and the nature of ‘truth’. Is she being interviewed by a journalist, speaking to a therapist, reporting the hate crime to the police... or is she herself being interrogated?  

And is Rosie herself ‘the comedian’? Or is this all fiction?  

A mash-up of standup and nostalgia-drenched spoken word soundscape mixing shades of TV shows Heated Rivalry and Mae Martin’s Feel Good with 2006 film Stranger Than Fiction.