By The Newsroom

Published 3rd Aug 2023, 12:21 BST

Updated 3rd Aug 2023, 12:27 BST

There are thousands of shows in Edinburgh this month. Please explain why we should come and see yours.

Because my show is going to be the best and the most fabulous, darling. Everyone has put a lot of time and energy into it, but I think that I'm telling a beautiful story and I'm crafting this really good experience. I think that people are going to come into the show just expecting “ohh, she’s gonna do a lip-sync”, “ohh, she might do a split” … There's gonna be no splitting. There'll be no lip-syncing. There's going to be live music, beautiful storytelling and comedy. What else do you really want in a show? I can't think of anything else.

What will we learn from your show that we didn’t know before?

A lot of the queer insecurities and queer confidences I learned and built for myself as a kid. I think that a lot of queer kids are like foundational building blocks that we never really explore. We don’t think about how impactful they are in our lives, how much they change us and how much they made us become who we are.

I get very vulnerable talking about those things. It’s beautiful. It's been such a cathartic experience making the show. Before deciding to come to Edinburgh Fringe, I had no intentions of doing this. I didn't know that this was something that I needed and wanted to do and now I'm on the other side of it. Having a product that I'm going to present to the world, it feels so great, and I feel really empowered.

Who or what was the biggest inspiration for your show?

Mike Birbiglia, because of the way that he's able to craft one-person shows I find to be very masterful. Kate Berlant is also an inspiration for me in this one-person show arena. So those two white people and my own life experiences were inspirations for the show.

What’s the best review you’ve ever had, and the worst?

When I did my first show in 2018, there was a review at Hardware Bar in Hell’s Kitchen on the metal stall in the bathroom in the back. Someone wrote, in bright red Sharpie, “Oh my God saw Monét X Change’s show last week. She's f****** great. She's f****** brilliant.” And I agree.

The worst one was a troll in the comments that saw me do the “bloop, bloopa, bloop” one time and their cocaine was bad, so they chucked that to my show being bad.

Who or what are you most excited about seeing this year?

I've never been to the Fringe festival at all, so I'm excited to take in all of it. I've heard from lots of friends like Jinkx – or my friend Tracy, who goes to the festival every couple of years – how amazing it is to have all these artists in Edinburgh doing these shows that you have no idea what to expect. Everyone writes about how creative and how enlightening Edinburgh is, so I don't know what to expect. I'm expecting to be enlightened, both comically and introspectively.

Tell us something about you that would surprise people.

I'm an opera singer. Surprisingly, a lot of people still don't know this because, people are just kind of passing to others. They might come to my show without having any idea of who I am, so, if you're reading this; I'm a drag queen and an opera singer. That’s what you should know that about me.

What are the best and worst things that have happened to you at a festival?

Oh, God. Well, what type of festival? I went to the Perth Fringe or Melbourne Festival, one of the festivals in Australia … I don't remember whatever one it was. Myself, Naomi Smalls, Violet Chachki, Kim Chi and a couple of the girls, we stumbled into this oil-mud wrestling thing with this beautiful woman that had her breasts out. She had this beautiful ponytail, and she was whipping around. That was kind of amazing and I want to see it again. Woman with the beautiful breasts and the point blonde ponytail, if you're reading this, send me a DM. I want to come to your show.

Thanks for the interview! We’d like to buy you a drink. Where are we going and what are we drinking?

Oh, we're drinking tequila. Though tequila is not very big in the UK, so I guess I'm drinking vodka for the month. You can give me a vodka soda with lime juice, lime juice is very important. Also, I know y'all hate ice in the UK, but please: import huge bricks of it so that any pub I go to, I can access ice at my leisure. Nothing is more infuriating than getting a drink in the UK and having a penny-sized ice cube just floating around in the glass. No, baby! I need about 12 of those. I like my drink cold.

Monét X Change: Life Be Lifein', Underbelly Bristo Square, 9.15pm, until 15 August.

My Festival: Monét X Change