2015 Edinburgh Fringe

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Following a successful run at the Tricycle Theatre, PaperMash Theatre's Happy Birthday Without You, a one-woman comedy written and performed by Sonia Jalaly, makes its Edinburgh Fringe debut. This co-production with the Tricycle Theatre, which won the 2014 Best Newcomer Award at the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival, runs in Paines Plough's award-winning Roundabout auditorium at Summerhall.

Happy Birthday Without You centres on the fictional performance artist Violet Fox, portraying the struggle of an artist desperate to find herself more extraordinary than what she sees as her distinctly ordinary audience. This cabaret piece explores a growing cultural obsession with autobiography through songs, impersonations, and satire.

Violet Fox is an award winning live and visual spoken word vegan solo artist and occasional collaborator. Today is a celebration of every birthday. And you're invited. Bring beer and bunting and come on a journey through Violet's childhood of pop tarts, Patti Smith and second hand smoke. In Happy Birthday Without You, Violet tells the story of her complicated relationship with her mother through a series of birthday anecdotes, musical interludes and cake.

Sonia Jalaly trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in December 2013. Happy Birthday Without You is her second solo show. She performed her first, Women Of Tackley, at The John Thaw Studio in Manchester in 2011. She writes and performs her own material at a number of cabaret nights in Manchester and London. As an actor, her credits include include Things Will Never Be The Same Again (Tricycle Theatre), Honey Blood (The Lowry), Apparition (The Portico Library), A Preoccupation with Romance (Zoo Southside, Edinburgh Fringe), and Tilley (RNCM).

Directed by: Ruby Thompson; Sound Design by: Luke Pajak; Lighting Design by: Max Blackman; Original Set Design by: Freyja Costelloe; Produced by: Lise Bell.