Lorna Rose Treen A Night In her Favourite City
Lorna has taken the world's largest arts festival by storm and is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most exciting and talented comics working right now.
My day starts just after show time around 5:40 pm, kidding, I wake up at like noon, and I prance around till like 1pm. I have to eat some form of carbohydrate and some form of protein and then caffeine, I must have coffee, at this time it is absolutely fundamental. I shower, and always listen to the same two songs. Big Day by Bombay Bicycle Club and 100% endurance by Yard Act . I listen to those two songs every day for the whole fringe and it gets me in the zone. Big day is all about it being their birthday or special day and they are spending the whole day in bed, then they sing about how it is their big day and their not moving, fuck you! 100% endurance is absolutely beautiful, it’s about aliens that have come to the planet and been like “we don’t know what is going on, do you know what’s going on?” The humans are like “oh shit, we thought you knew what’s going on”. But it’s not all pointless, we should all just start living, making sure we all just feel it, give it all you’ve got because you can’t take it with you! I love optimistic nihilism, that is what my fringe has been so far.
If I have washed my Brownie uniform, I pick it up from the dryer, I then head out and go by a Sainsburys or Tesco, pick up some form of fruit, if I have woken up at 11 I will get a full fat Coke, if I have woken up at 12 I will have a Lucozade sport. I always get the scan wrong and try it again and again, my brain thinks some of the people around me might be coming to my show, this is so embarrassing.
After I’ve finally given up and gone to the cashier to pay, I walk through Edinburgh to the Pleasance where I have my show. I went to Uni here but Fringe always feels like a different city, it is two Edinburgh’s, Fringe feels like Edinburgh on a night out. I love her. I feel possessive, she is the best city in the world, and if she was a woman, I would marry her straight away.
My get-in is supposed to be 3:50 but I arrive around 3:40, I do my prep, mainly stuffing fake cigarettes into my pockets. I get all of my admin in order, I have a lot of admin in my show. My surprise arrives and that takes up a lot of my time. Then my tech arrives, Jake, we have a little chat, he is so cool, I become hyper aware of how much cooler he is than me so unconsciously say something embarrassing…
“The gorgeous thing about my show is that it is so short form. I really can’t think much further than the next five minutes.”
Then I do a good 20 min stretch. I down my drink, Lucozade easy, full fat Coke hard. When we get into the space I set up the set, before I am in my set (because I come out of it) I practise losing my balance it’s a clown technique, from Deyanna Fleysher and you force yourself to lose balance and then catch yourself, so you lose yourself and then find yourself. My director, Jon, is the opposite, he has to be grounded before a show, but I guess that is two sides of the same coin. Sometimes I pray, this comes from Aggie (she is an actor friend). I start praying saying, “if this, then please!” Finally, I have this track that comes on to let me know the audience has all arrived. That’s when I know it is time to physically pull my socks up! It’s funny because I literally do it, when it is the time to… “Pull your socks up”.
Before the show I feel a mixture of nervous, sick and excited. Really excited. Doing a show every day at Fringe I really can’t tell the difference between nerves and excitement now. The gorgeous thing about my show is that it is so short form. I really can’t think much further than the next five minutes. I love thinking in short bursts. It is like lets fucking do this. That is less overwhelming for me. That is how I designed it. It helps me be very present. Basically my biggest fear is being too rehearsed, I am an improviser. So if I can do a bit as if it is the first time that’s the aim.
During the show I am 100% delivering lines like it is the first time. Though it is like I have two brains. Because part of my brain is like, “ok next bit”. It is a weird mental dance, the other day there was a baby in the show, (if I could I would require people to have a baby in the show because I am so pro babes in arms). But they left just before my Sally Rooney baby bit, I was trying to think how do I reference the baby. Then the baby came back in and I was like, “you missed the bit for you!” It’s so lovely when you know a show so well that you can pull something like that off.
When the show finishes and they clap I am relieved, it isn’t a huge ego thing it is like, “phew, we did it, nothing awful happened and it was fun, that’s that one, that was the one.” I am really happy and I am proud. Which is weird because I don’t think before this show I had ever really felt pride. I love PRIDE, I go every year, but I don’t feel proud of myself like right now. I think, with this show, it being my first whole thing, people love it and I am like, “yeaaah!” Most importantly, it’s stupid and fucking dumb and the crowd are all clapping and laughing along. I am really aware this is my debut, I feel, in the history of Lorna it is my first show and it is just stupid. I did put a lot of thought into it, I am really happy with it and I love it.
I am not someone who goes to chat after the show. I will go see people at Courtyard if I know a friend who I am close to. But I need to be alone. I am so neurotic, Jake (the tech) is phenomenal, one of the best people I know, one of the best techs I know. After my show I look at him and go "that was a good one” or “that was a tough one” and he is always the first person to be like “yeah that was tough”, or “that was good”.
I am so aware that after my show I can’t hold a sentence together but I need to speak normal human words so I take my phone off airplane mode, very neurotically message Jon and my producers to tell them how the show was, find out if anyone important was in because I can’t know before. I also down a lot of water and need a little bit of silence, be that literally two minutes to myself. Jake will say goodbye, the surprise will say goodbye, and I will have a couple of minutes in an empty room to be like, “balaaghala!” I check my phone again and drink water again. I am not drinking alcohol this Fringe so I really need that time to unwind. Then I will go watch shows.
On my way home around 2am I will often pass Che and get the cheesy chips with garlic chilli sauce. Go to bed, and watch telly, till I fall asleep. I have become obsessed with, Who Do You Think You Are? I have always loved it, but this Fringe I have watched so many episodes. Matt Lucas was incredible, really moving, I would say 5 stars in the Guardian, in fact five stars in the bloody telegraph!
Stupid is the future. Like that song I listen to, 100% endurance, aliens coming down and we have no idea. At the end of it, we are all going to die, have a stupid life you fucking stupid idiots.
Recommendations:
Venues (London Based)
Bill Murray - The venue I first did my hour long skin pigeon show, it is also a dedicated comedy venue where you can see all the best acts coming through.
London Hospital Tavern - A cool pub theatre in Whitechapel, that's doing good things all the time.
Stratford’s Olympic swimming pool, everyone should swim, it's fun to float.
Shows
You have to see, Birthmarked, by Brook Tate, at the Assembly Rooms.
Alice Cockayne’s, I Showered Before I Came, at the Underbelly.
and Trolls!!
Art and artists that are inspiring Lorna at the moment:
The plug:
Lorna Rose treen: Skin Pigeon is playing from now till the 27th of August, at 16:35 everyday, the whole run has already sold out, but press tickets are released within an hour of the show starting, so you could be in luck if you just go to the box office and ask.