Henrietta Steventon interview

20 year-old comedian Henrietta Steventon will make her Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut this August with her 1 hour stand-up show Henrietta Steventon: The Immoral High Ground.

Henrietta had her first professional role as Gwyn in Channel 5's The New Tomorrow and has since gone on to perform in the UK, USA and Australasia. Last summer, she directed and acted in the Off-Off Broadway premiere of her original farce Ennui: An English Comedy with a French Title for an American Audience.

Henrietta is currently an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York City, but is now home for the summer to prepare for her upcoming show at the Fringe.

What can we expect from your show at the Fringe?

I'll be relating a lot of excerpts from the riches-to-more-riches story of my life so far. You'll get to hear how Jimmy Savile rejected me as a child and how I pretend I went to Hogwarts when I'm chatting up American boys (you'd be surprised how many points I've earned for Gryffindor...).

There'll also be some scathing commentary about bigots, religious hypocrites, and hairdressers who have no chat until you open your Cosmo and suddenly they have a thousand questions about your holiday to Mykonos.

How did you come up with the title of your show?

The idea of 'The Immoral High Ground' is a place where you can be condescending, non-PC and a bit elitist, which is the grounds for most of my stand-up show (and also my Tinder bio word-for-word).

When was your last performance?

I do stand-up in New York, but the last proper show I did was The 122nd Annual Varsity Show at Columbia University. Every year, the University puts on an original satirical musical and it's become rather a cult sensation because Rodgers & Hammerstein did it back in the day, as well as Kate McKinnon (from SNL and the new Ghostbusters), and a lot of other big names.

In the show, I played a snobby, wine-inclined academic, which was a wonderful coincidence as I've been method acting that role for a couple of years now! All of my props were wine bottles, so I basically became a soprano Cersei Lannister for 3 hours every night; it was fantastic.

Is 'The Immoral High Ground' your first full length comedy show?

It's my first full length stand-up show, but I directed/played the lead role in a farce I wrote called Ennui: An English Comedy with a French Title for an American Audience.

The show had a week run last summer as part of Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival in New York City. It ended up being the best-selling show of the festival and broadwayworld.com said lots of lovely things about the script.

This is your first time at the Edinburgh Fringe; what are you most looking forward to?

Well, it's my first year at the Fringe, but it's also my first time in Scotland. Everything I know about Scotland is from watching Outlander, so I'm expecting to touch a big rock on my first day there, go back in time and be taken as an attractive Scotsman's lover. I'll be sorely disappointed if this doesn't happen.

You can catch 'Henrietta Steventon: The Immoral High Ground', from August 15th to 21st at Cabaret Voltaire (Upstairs) at 1am, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Free Entry, 18+. Find Henrietta on Twitter and Facebook