Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Stuart Goldsmith

Tell us about your show and what audiences can expect?

It's an earnest, heart on my sleeve stand-up show about coping with the extraordinary climate dread that I'm feeling, and that you may be too. But I've been a pro stand-up for a long long time, so I can genuinely guarantee that I've made it funny. It's been a hard bloody road but now they're always laughing.

Can you talk about some of the creative team involved?

The brilliant Dec Munro is my director, and although he came on board relatively late he's made a seismic difference to the show. I've written it all myself, and drawn from interviews with sustainability leaders from huge businesses as well as non-technical climate aware people. My management have also been excellent in helping me shape what I have to admit to occasionally calling "the vision"...

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work, both in terms of creation and performance?

Usually I just write about my problems! In the past I've dug into aspects of my mental health, my fear of death, how hard I find letting go of my selfishness when trying to be a good dad, what ambition means to me in my forties. For this show I was simultaneously elated and depressed when I realised that the problem of the climate is going to stay topical for the rest of our lives. I'm naturally a problem solver not a wallower, so working through the seemingly unsolvable issue of how to try to be happy in the face of catastrophe has been creatively unputdownable.

Looking at this hour, how would you say it links to previous work personally and thematically?

I'm still the main character! Over the nearly 20 years of my career I've realised that the secret to being relatable is to write as personally as possible. I'm always trying to overcome my natural tendency to keep distance between myself and my audience, and really let them in. But I've also found it a fun challenge to try and educate as well this time. Not in an overly didactic way I hope, but if I can make the controversial history of the "carbon footprint" a tangent on the way to presenting a funny story about greenwash, so much the better.

Why is this an important story to tell?

I don't think there are many stories more important than this. I'm left wing and I care about social justice, but the climate crisis is going to turn the dial up on every single other issue we face.

What would you like audiences to take away from seeing you at the Fringe?

Obviously it has to be a really gut-busting funny show, and if it hadn't then I've failed, but over and above that there are actual takeaways – one message of the show is that we needn't feel like we have to purge ourselves of all our carbon-related guilt in order to have a voice and start to participate. The shame that I was a hypocrite for wanting change while also driving a car has held me back in the past, but now I realise that it plays into the hands of the fossil fuel industry if we all wait until we're tree-dwelling vegan yoghurt weavers...

You’re taking inspiration from events happening in the world around you in terms of your work. Do you think artists have a responsibility to respond to what's happening?

I'm not sure responsibility is the right word. I certainly feel that a hugely fun career in which everyone laughs and claps at me, and I travel the world having adventures, means that I may be more obligated to respond than the next factory worker. I think artists are free to do what they like. There's no point burdening us with responsibility because that'll corrupt the art. Maybe the platforms on which we work have a responsibility to promote socially conscious stuff. I suspect certain social platforms deliberately suppress climate content, so it would be good to have at least a level playing field!

How do you feel about the current arts landscape in the UK and your part in it? Does it excite you and inspire you to keep pushing the boat out?

I feel absurdly lucky to have grown up as an artist under an arts-positive Labour government, not to mention having discovered stand-up when it was way more possible to scratch a living than it is now. I think that although art can thrive under repression and lack of funding, it thrives far more, and in a far more diverse way, when it's funded properly. I'm pleased to see loads more women, artists of colour and LGBTQIA+ comedians breaking through, but there's still a long way to go. If I'm honest I sometimes feel like a dinosaur seeing Gen Z comics speak in the new language of comedy on social media, but I'm happy to feel like one, that's appropriate, and I'm accepting of the fact I have to keep learning.

Why are arts festivals such as the Fringe so important for international exchange?

Post-Brexit we have to do every single thing we can to clutch onto our international neighbours and remind them we still care about them. As the effluent continues to hit the fan environmentally, we need to prepare not by hoarding resources but by building networks and the arts are an incredible way of doing that.

Have you got your eye on any other shows that are part of the programme?

You're talking to Billy Fringe Guide here! The debuts that are going to blow everyone away include Lorna Rose Treen, Nabil Abdulrashid, Reuben Solo, Lachlan Werner, William Stone and torrents of others, and the conquering heroes I can't wait to see include Spencer Jones, Rose Matafeo, Paul Currie, Bridget Christie, Mat Ewins, Police Cops and Mark Silcox. How much longer have you got, I could go on...

What’s next for you and how are you feeling about the future in general?

I have a genuine sense of having found a mission within my comedy, a "why" beyond ego and fun. It's incredibly exciting even if the subject matter itself is still something with which I oscillate between fear and guilt, and hope and calm too.

How can Edinburgh audiences keep up with you beyond the festival?

You can find everything at stuartgoldsmith.com, including stand-up-clips, comedy specials that aren't about the climate, keynote speaking sessions about Resilience from the perspective of comedians, and my new Trojan Horse concept for recharging corporate climate communications through comedy!