Interview: Sh!t Theatre

“We’ll get through it,” Louise Mothersole reassures me. She’s joking about our dodgy internet connection, with a Zoom backdrop that makes it look like she’s in a medieval French village, but Sh!t Theatre’s new show Or What’s Left Of Us shares the same tenacious spirit. A show about grief, and life after it, inspired by folk club sing-arounds, it marks the performance art duo’s 14th year at the Fringe. Yet, as Rebecca Biscuit admits, there was a time that they were “genuinely unsure if we’d ever work again”.

Last time Edinburgh saw the Fringe cult favourites, they were barkeeping a sticky pub for 2019’s Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum With Expats. Veering between a lads’ holiday and a steely investigation of Malta’s (allegedly) corrupt border policies, it was classic, prize-winning Sh!t: boozy chaos, dry humour and steely politics, all coated in clownish face paint and Powerpoint slides.

But after the death of Adam Brace in 2023, their long-term director, best friend and Rebecca’s partner, they found themselves lost for words. “We didn’t know how to be Sh!t Theatre again, we didn’t know how to create together again,” explains Mothersole. “So as a way of just being together, we started playing folk music.”

“We haven’t written these songs, no-one owns them, and they’re potentially hundreds of years old. There’s no pressure!” Biscuit laughs. “It really became our way of getting back together.”

Playing together grew into spending nights in folk clubs across the country, where the duo discovered sing-arounds; community sessions in which strangers and regulars alike are invited to lead the group in a song. “It was that joy and grief thing. I kept crying,” Biscuit smiles. “I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but it reminded us of a wake; a lot of these songs about death and saying goodbye are used both at funerals and massive piss-ups. It’s about death and it’s about life, at the same time.”

So, too, is Or What’s Left Of Us. Mothersole describes it as “a show about old grief shaking hands with new grief”, telling me that it also addresses her father’s suicide in 2012. And while many previous Sh!t Theatre shows (including DollyWould and Letters to Windsor House) have put their personal lives on stage, this time it’s different – both a departure from their own theatrical style, as well as a celebration of their endurance.

“But we do aim to provide an entertaining experience,” Mothersole grins, pausing for effect. “It’s also a true crime!”

In what feels like classic Sh!t spirit, I feel emotional whiplash while they regale me with the mysterious arson attack which befell one of their favourite folk clubs. No, they won’t tell me who did it. Yes, the show might even have pyro, if Health & Safety permit it. Biscuit and Mothersole remain masters of the art of the yarn; even after everything changes, some things stay the same.

This August, immediately after each show, they’ll be holding a real sing-around. You don’t need to be a singer, Mothersole urges. “It’s just this cathartic, joyful place where people let stuff out. We’ve had people do Lighthouse Family before, someone did ‘Under the Sea’, we’ve had actual sea shanties.” It’s totally optional, and you’ll be welcome to sing, to listen, or even to lead a song if the mood strikes.

It’s a new era for Sh!t Theatre, as they use songs old and new to live through grief old and new. “We’re still at the beginning,” Biscuit says, “Like the audience, really. But we’re all going forward together.”