Skank creator Clementine Bogg-Hargroves on optimism, hopes and more

Clementine Bogg-Hargroves, writer of Skank, talks to us about being 20-something, optimism, hopes and the desire to find the right recycling bin for her baked bean tin.

Skank focuses on a young 20-something woman, Kate, who has yet to find her place in the big wide world. In this no-holds-barred, wickedly funny show, she embraces a life of trivial sex, partying and trying to convince herself that one day she won't be in this awful office job. Kate takes the audience on a journey; there are highs and lows, darkness and light, yet a lot of laughs.

Let's find out from Clementine how she balances the funny with the serious, and who she's written this show for...

Is Kate based on a real person/people?

Skank is based on a tough time in my life so, yes, Kate originally was based on me. But over the past few years Kate and I have grown apart - in a really nice way. I have found more of her vulnerability and more of my own strength, distancing myself from that time of my life and working on the playing of Kate so that she is a whole person on her own.

Kate has things that she wants but doesn't seem to have the ambition to go and get them. What do you want that you're yet to reach for?

I really enjoy writing and performing live work, but my first love is film. I grew up in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere in the south of France and didn't see a live performance until I moved to England and saw a GCSE class's rendition of 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.

My dream has always been to star in films, but what I want next is to write and perform on TV. I want to be funny on TV, I want to be dramatic on TV and I want to be surrounded by like-minded people to collaborate with - to make TV. I would love to one day work with Natasia Demetriou, I think she's incredible.

I would also really like to be able to hold a handstand.

Skank is a full of jokes but tackles serious subjects, how do you find a balance between what's funny and what you want to say about mental & physical health and the state of the world?

I have quite a dark sense of humour, my best friend and I get the most laughs talking about the worst year of our lives where we'd take it in turns to be inconsolable. They say comedy = tragedy + time so the darkness and light balance each other quite naturally for me.

In Skank, Kate definitely wears wit as an impenetrable shell so that no one sees how much she's hurting, even though she wants to cry out for help. Sometimes she alludes to her anxiety by joking but no one listens.

When she quips about watching seven buses go past before building the courage to get on one, her colleague laughs it off as "classic Kate, isn't she quirky!" Kate's a character that lives with real darkness inside her but is naturally the class clown, and I see those two traits in a lot of people.

Kate hasn't found her place in the world. Do you think todays' 20-somethings have a place to find?

That's really hard to say. We want to be optimistic, but the system is rigged against us. Gone are the days where average 20-somethings can even have their own homes. There are such high rates of mental illness in this generation and I think that's because many of us struggle to see a future.

Especially with the climate crisis constantly looming. It's always there, like Kate with her can, not being able to let it go in case it doesn't get recycled correctly.

I think it's hard for a lot of people to find their place in the world right now. You can barely do what you love because it's not financially sustainable, and you can barely do what you don't love because you end up climbing the walls... That's such a depressing answer, I AM ACTUALLY A FUN PERSON I PROMISE.

Who is Skank written for?

I think there's something for everyone to enjoy or take away from Skank. I mean, there's a lot of swearing so it's probably not for kids (unless the parents are really cool).

It does particularly resonate with women, the bits about the smear test and the outcome of it. So many women come up to me after and say they loved seeing that on stage because they could relate to it and think it should be more openly discussed.

My director Zoey and I have been so pleased with the breadth of audiences it has touched. It's made grown men cry, older ladies laugh at the really dirty bits, and started conversations between audience members in the bar after the show. We can't wait to meet more audiences and kiss them right on the mouth.