Stitched up: Diane Spencer interview
Last year, Diane Spencer gave us Power Tool, a truly glorious stitch-up of her former employer Nancy Dell’Olio. This year her Edinburgh show suggests stitching of a different kind
“It’s about my family coming together, with sewing as the running thread," says Diane Spencer with an awkward chuckle on the textile pun. "It's called Seamless, which is a reference to sewing but also about how you join into another family.”
The livewire comic seems particularly content, and it isn't all down to exorcising the Nancy Dell'Olio demon; Spencer got hitched in June to Kevin Shepherd, a comedy director who has three shows on at the Fringe this year too. So should we expect a 'happy, shiny' show focussing on domestic bliss?
Though the two entertainers are a good match, the tricky bit for Spencer has been working out how to integrate into the lives of Shepherd’s two teenage daughters. "Becoming a stepmother isn’t easy. It isn’t talked about much and there’s hardly anything out there to help. I found one video on YouTube, but all the comments underneath were about how much everyone hated their step-parents. So that wasn’t great.”
She includes jokes about the girls in her new show, but through the skewed prism of stand-up, this isn’t always 100% flattering and could be a risky strategy rather than an affectionate demonstrate of how much she cares. Spencer is however adamant that she isn’t going to shy away from saying what she wants (this is the comedian who started one show a few years ago with the line “I wank too much”).
So are the step-kids allowed to watch? "I’m not censoring myself and they’re not invited. Period. The show still has some rough elements, plus I do call their dad my sexy, horned goat that I ride to climax peak.” Fair enough then.
This will be Spencer’s seventh show at the Fringe out of an eventual target of ten. She admits that she’s still experimenting with forms and making mistakes, but says that her hope by the end of the ten is to have got beyond that. “I guess I’m aiming for artistic clarity – it’s not that I think when I reach number ten my head will pop open and there will be flowers or any physical change.”
She disagrees with the idea that it’s the experimenting that is the fun part and reaching her goal might mean there’s less to motivate her. She throws another sewing analogy into the mix to explain her thinking: "The first dress I made was so bad it sent my step-kids into hysterics. It was too short, it was huge and it was lilac – so it looked like a hospital moomoo. I’d thought I’d followed the instructions to the letter but then found the collar was inside out and one of the sleeves was on upside down.
"The second dress I made, the collar was the right way round and it fitted a bit better, okay the pockets were still a bit skewiff but it was getting there."
So, third time lucky? "It actually fitted. I chose a better fabric and put a modesty panel on so it wasn’t too short. As I go along each time I’m getting better – once I’ve got all the rules in my mind and I know how it works then I can go fucking nuts. [After making the dresses] I went to the fabric shop and bought this shiny, gold quilting they have and I made a bolero for my wedding!”
Right. So what does the shiny gold bolero of comedy that follows the dodgy dresses of comedy look like? Spencer pauses to think: “I don’t know yet but I will work that out.”
Diane Spencer: Seamless, Gilded Balloon Teviot (Wee Room), 3-29 Aug (not 15), 5.45pm, £5-9.50