EDINBURGH 2016: BWW Q&A - Sofie Hagen

What can you tell us about your new show Shimmer Shatter?

After my last show, people told me that they left feeling happy and empowered. That puzzled me, as I am not a cheerful person and I do not feel like I spread happiness at all. So this show is about sadness. About feeling so out of place and awkward at parties and amongst people in general, that you seek refuge in public bathrooms. I am not sure people will leave feeling happy, but hopefully they will have laughed.

This year's eroticism is directed at someone a lot more obtainable, I'm afraid. I have enough erotic Westlife fanfiction lying around to be able to get through the next 20 years of Edinburgh Festival, but I might save that for when I'm all out of stories and things to say. When I'm in my sixties.

I counted how many nights I have slept in my own bed since last August. 45 nights. The rest I have spent in hotels of various levels of comfort all over the world. New York, Copenhagen, Melbourne. It's been an extraordinary year and I am very grateful that Edinburgh was good to me. But now I can't wait to do a new show. I have missed the festival and I can't wait to go back.

Do you think you know what to expect from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?

I love doing my show, so I imagine I will love doing the show for the whole month. And I have watched a lot of previews of other people's shows already and the standard is so high this year. Some of my favourite friends are doing their first shows, like the incredible Kiri Pritchard-McClean and Jamali Maddix.

To people who still feel like the weird kid at school. Who look at other people doing normal stuff such as small-talk or attend parties and wonder how they do it. I don't want to use the word 'broken', because we still function. If this sounds too dark, the show isn't for you.

Timings and venue information for Shimmer Shatter can be found on the edfringe website.