EDINBURGH 2022: Julia Masli Q&A

BWW chats to Julia Masli about bringing CHOOSH! to the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about CHOOSH!

CHOOSH! is my first solo show. It's my favourite stupid physical comedy routines I've done over the past years presented as an extremely absurd homage to migration.

A hungry clown from an Eastern European village travels to America for a hot dog. He has to leave his dog best friend behind to taste a hot dog on the other side of the world.

It's also a salute to Slava Polunin's epic Snow Show. He's our Slavic grandfather of clowning so it felt important to respect that by having a lot of snow in my pockets at all times.

Who would you recommend comes to see it?

Physical comedy lovers, clowning lovers, people who love to laugh, people looking for a special experience, travellers of all kinds, people who like snow but don't like being cold (there is a lot of snow but it will be warm promise)

Tell us a little about your background in clowning.

I trained at a theatre school - Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France.

I wanted to be a serious actor but the audition process in London was scary and I had a strong foreign accent. I was told by members of Complicite - a theatre company that I was hugely inspired by at the time, that there was a good theatre school that held no auditions. They said Philippe teaches theatre as play and that not being English wouldn't be a problem there. They said this old French master clown who is teaching there is STILL alive and he has a great feeling for theatre. I could learn tragedy, Chekhov, Shakespeare and clowning there among other modules.

I was good at tragedy but an awful clown. But because I was so awful at clown I gave up and lost my will to be good at it which freed me later. A lot of people in my class were stand ups and comedians, so when school was over they were all gigging on the comedy stages. The thought of doing that seemed impossible but it was the only way I could perform, because the world of auditions was behind a closed door. So after I graduated with my unaccredited but very beautiful clown theatre school certificate I started gigging.

I don't know much about comedy, I fell into it by chance, but for some reason people laugh. Maybe they laugh because I'm not supposed to be there and then they laugh because I'm surprised that they laugh so I keep doing it because it feels good and they keep laughing and I keep being surprised. It's a miracle that I'm doing clowning if you were in class with me for clown module.

Where might we have seen you before?

Legs! We did a show called Legs with The Duncan Brothers in 2019. It's an hour comedy show about legs. People didn't believe it was possible to do a whole hour about legs but we did it and legs even got the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality for it. It's a miracle! I congratulate your legs and everyone's legs reading this.

Then we did the sequel - Logs! We did it at Soho Theatre

Then The Duncan Brothers did Clogs without me :(

Our clown adaptation of Toltoy's epic Anna Karenina - "Anna KareniNa Na Na'' with The Pushinettes was nominated for an OFF West End Theatre Award in 2019.

I also started a comedy night at The Bill Murray - Comedy from Hell. Come to hell to see it!

What's next for you after the Fringe?

I'll be touring CHOOSH! chooosh choooosh! The next stop is the festivals in Lithuania in autumn.

I've also been working as a clown with a Finnish circus company - Racehorse, on their new show. They are brilliant acrobats with crazy and extremely dangerous ideas! It's terrifying to rehearse with them because they fly from a massive building that we built on stage while talking on the phone and ordering pizza.

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