Edinburgh Festival 2023: Krystal Evans on the trauma that inspired comedy show The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp
For a long time, Edinburgh-based comic Krystal Evans, 36, was embarrassed to talk about her traumatic past.
She had a chaotic childhood and grew-up with a very difficult mother.
Then, when she was 14, she survived a fire in their mobile home in Sequim, Washington State, by breaking herself out through a window. Sadly, her six-year-old sister, Katie, died, and Evans was left with severe burns.
It’s horrific and life-defining stuff, but this performer kept relatively silent.
Until now, since her Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp, will be at Monkey Barrel Comedy throughout August.
“I suppose I was ashamed of it back in the day. When I’d tell people about it, the shocked reaction made me feel like I had done something wrong by sharing,” says Evans, who feels very settled in the Scottish capital after an itinerant early life. “By the time I reached my thirties, I thought this is obviously something that I can't tell people because I don't want to make them feel awkward. After becoming a comedian, I tried to dip my toe into material about mental health or my mom's bipolar. Maybe because I wasn't experienced enough, it just never got a good reaction. It would always be kind of awkward. Now I’m more experienced and the audience knows what they're coming to see. They respond way better to it”.
It was during lockdown that Evans decided to further examine the fire and its fallout.
The catalyst was a period of post-natal depression after the birth of her second son, who is now three. Her teenage experience and its relation to the way she was feeling was brought up during therapy.
“I've had some stuff come up since I had my kids, and the pandemic also really exacerbated some things for me,” she says. “I was in a dark place when it first happened”. Creating the show has been cathartic - “it was hard at first but I’m better at it now”.
However, it’s taken a while to perfect the material and Evans has tested “a bunch of different ways to tell the story”, which she doesn’t skim over, but explores very deeply. She also makes sure to pack jokes into the emotional rollercoaster.
The resulting show has gone down well at preview performances. In fact, an early version got a special commendation from the Glasgow Comedy Festival’s Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award back in March this year.
“The way people respond is very mixed,” says Evans. “Sometimes an audience will laugh hysterically, and I'll be like, ‘wow, they really like it’, but then other times, you know, it'll be a very silent crowd, then afterwards, loads of people will say they loved it. I've had a lot of them tell me that the people I describe remind them of their own mother, sister or their dad. I've never gotten so many private messages and they'll tell me a big story about themselves or whatever, which is so lovely. It's really nice that people go away and think about it, which is really humbling for me”.
In creating a show that builds a lot of tension, Evans has found that Americans tend to laugh a lot, but other nationalities, including those from the UK, seem more self-conscious. “It’s difficult to get British people to laugh at hard things,” she says. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival audience will be a real mixture of nationalities and, thus, a further testing ground for the material. However, Evans thinks that she definitely has Scottish people onside.
“I love Scotland and being based here so much. I feel like I'm so good at making Scottish people laugh now because I'm like the token American of the Scottish comedy scene. And I like being that,” says Evans, who is a regular at various clubs round the capital.
We’re sure that locals will enjoy the dark humour, not that tragicomedy is a new genre.
There currently seems to be a wave of comedians who are exploring difficult subjects, yet still achieve the LOLs. There are a few that have inspired Evans’ work.
“Hannah Gadsby's show was massively inspirational for me. God, it's incredible. Everyone should have seen it by now, it’s on Netflix. She talks about experiences like growing up gay in Australia and traumatic stuff yet it's such a funny show,” she says, in reference to Gadsby's 2018 film, Nanette. “There’s also Richard Gadd and Jonny Pelham, who talks about being sexually abused. Christopher Titus did a show that was really inspirational to me. It was called Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, where he talked about his mom and dad’s mental health. That's really intense, but almost every line was a joke and it wasn't in any way disrespecting his story”.
Evans agrees that it’s probably her sense of humour that has got her through a lot of difficult times. Getting a laugh is still a thrill. “Oh yes, it’s really the best”. Also, ironically, she may have inherited some of her skills from her mother.
“That's the language in which we communicated when I was growing up. The women on my mom's side of the family, especially, are so funny. And they would always make the darkest joke at the most inappropriate moment,” she says. “And it was hilarious and felt so good because it would be a breath of fresh air. Like a relief. That's the place where I feel the most comfortable, when I'm making jokes and it makes me feel closer to the people I love”.Krystal Evans: The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp is at Monkey Barrel: Hive 2, from August 2-27 at 7.35pm, tickets from £6, www.edfringe.com
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