I had the lovely opportunity to sit down and talk about ‘A Girl Gets Naked In This’ with Isy, Catherine, and Nicole. The show originated as a production about sex in a bedroom in St. Andrews, and enjoyed great success. Admirably, ‘A Girl Gets Naked in This’ raised £580 for Scottish Women’s Aid and The Pad Project. Fortunately for Edinburgh residents, the show is coming to Bedlam Theatre on Saturday, February 3rd.
So, what is ‘A Girl Gets Naked In This‘ about? Isy Platt states that the show is ‘a series of monologues that are student written and performed.’ The show focuses on the sexual experiences of students, and encompasses a range of narratives. Catherine Barrie adds that the process has been ‘a beautifully collaborative process.’
Below is a short snippet of the interview:
Emily: What aspect of the show are you most proud of?
Nicole: I think we are proud of all the collaboration and the new work, writers, and performers. We are also proud that we did it at no cost, which really excited us. It meant we were able to give everything to charity, which doesn’t happen a lot with student theatre.
Catherine: I’m proud of how close everyone got and how safe people felt. That was really cool. They felt safe sharing things that they had written. We worked on the monologues weekly and everyone always chipped in.
Isy: I think that process is still continuing. As we are preparing the work that is going to Bedlam, we have been chopping and changing some stuff. The process of collaboration has really continued.
Emily: Why is this show relevant and significant?
Isy: That’s a big question!
Catherine: I think the show is important because there are so many speakers. We can always do more or do better, but we did try to make sure there was a wide range of experiences and types of people speaking about sex. If we had done only one monologue, we wouldn’t have been able to capture things as effectively, or at all. The range of experiences we have tried to engage with is a reason why the show is important.
Nicole: Every girl involved has a range of experiences around sex, positive and negative. This ended up being a place to explore not just terrible experiences or amazing experiences. I feel like we covered a lot of ground. We had a lot of men come up to us after the show and say ‘Oh, that was actually so funny’ or ‘actually so good.’ Maybe our show can make people more open-minded or be a reminder not to project.
Catherine: I think it was cool that it was an all-woman project. Like Nicole was saying, the comments about it actually being funny are back-handed. People might assume we cannot talk about these things without it being some kind of trauma dump, but it is not. Or they might assume it is not effectively funny because the speakers are women. I agree with exactly what Nicole said.
Isy: I completely agree and I think the effect on the audience is important. Before our first show, we had no idea what to expect. The only people who had heard the monologues were ourselves. It was really nice to be able to hear the people in the hallway. It was nice people watching and listening to snippets of conversations. There were a few people who were surprised, and I think it was nice to subvert expectations and send a message that we can talk about sex and sexual experiences without the audience feeling like they’re all going to therapy. We wanted to be able to tell stories that were funny and sad and cover so many different kinds of sexual experiences. There are some stories in which sex doesn’t even happen. It’s sort of about what happens around people. Our show is about people.
Tickets can be found on Bedlam’s website:
https://www.bedlamtheatre.co.uk/shows/a-girl-gets-naked-in-this-2024
Image by Emma Dalton provided via People You Know Productions Press Release