Maggie Widdoes on the barf laugh

US comedian Maggie Widdoes hates being shoved in a pigeonhole. The international premiere of Stay Big and Go Get 'Em marks the Edinburgh Fringe debut of a Los Angeles comedian who believes in the power of the "barf laugh". We caught up with her shortly after she arrived in Edinburgh.

Playful, naughty, dark - your show sounds like it takes audiences to lots of different places?

I love those descriptors! I feel those are three words I would want to describe myself as a person, and with this show I really wanted to create something that could hold all those different parts of me. I think we can all start to pigeon-hole ourselves into these little boxes and categories of genre, or sex, or gender, etc. because that's very much what the modern world wants us to reflect back to it. Society loves a box! But when we apply those boxes to ourselves it's just so damn limiting! And tiring! I'm so tired!

So I want to make things, like this show, that let the me who writes and reads the softest of soft girl poetry to hang out with the me who loves and owns the complete box set of Jackass - both the series and the movies! I've always been scared to bring my tender, hopeful self to comedy and vice versa, and I'm just simply sick of it! So that's what this is, a bringing together of all the little freaks, and voices, and desires inside me and seeing if I can make them all get along. It's sort of like that "Three people walk into a bar..." joke except I'm all the people and also somehow the bar? I haven't worked that metaphor out yet, but you get it.

Who are the comedians that you admire the most - and why?

I'll start from the beginning (of me). Much like every other human who existed in the 90s, I was very influenced by the big names of that time. So we're talking the casts of Seinfeld, SNL, Friends ... those types of things. But once I hit middle school, my parents started sneaking me in to sketch shows at The Groundlings comedy theatre in LA - you were supposed to be 18 to enter, I hope this doesn't retrospectively get me in trouble - and I got to see a lot of comedians before they got big. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Will Forte and Mikaela Watkins were the most impactful for me of that time. And I think a lot of it had to do with seeing for the first time people, especially the women, so entirely harnessing their own power and voice. My family and I made up a phrase from watching them, "barf laughing", and it is exactly what it sounds like: laughing so hard you feel like you're going to barf.

That kind of laughter is where you can really feel the healing capabilities of humour, where it becomes a literal, physical experience, and I think that's what I've always wanted both as a performer and an audience member. To speak as my most cringe, earnest self, I want to feel transformed by a performance, whichever side of it I'm on. That can come from comedy with more overt emotional stakes, like Aisling Bea's This Way Up or Danny McBride's The Righteous Gemstones, or from the simplest, silliest thing like a character named Marbles who doesn't know how to use a straw correctly. That last one is a Melissa McCarthy classic and the origin of the term "barf laugh".

Because I'm thorough and long-winded, I'll throw in some of my other all-timers: Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Christopher Guest, Maria Bamford, Amy Sedaris, Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin and Martin Short, Jacqueline Novak, John Early, and because I am a white woman in my 30s, of course Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I could honestly go on listing names for longer than anyone has time for, but I'll stick with these for now. Can't believe I'm still typing.

You're also a big music and movie lover, so does any of that relate to your show?

Both directly and indirectly, yes! Directly, a lot of my stories involve connection to music, movies, TV etc. One of the best things art of any kind can do is connect to us so deeply that it comes to inform, theme, and epitomise different eras of our lives. So as I work my way through my own lifetime in the show, I definitely cover my Titanic era (both the movie and tragic shipwreck in general), my emo rock era, my Rent era, and my Ani Difranco/artists of Lilith Fair era, which might actually just be a lifelong condition.

I never want to rely too heavily on references in a project, because I think those usually age very quickly and very poorly. But there's no denying that when I was eight and saw Kate and Leo steaming up that carriage on that doomed ship somewhere across the Atlantic, it left a big impression. Those handprints sliding down the fogged up window made me the woman I am today.

Some comedians present an exaggerated version of their real selves on stage, others adopt a completely invented persona - what do we get from you?

I'm definitely stationed closer to that first option. This is the most "me" I've ever been on stage, but with that I'm still absolutely a heightened version of myself. Luckily, I'm not always walking around forcing people to listen to my deepest shame and traumas. I pay a therapist very good money for that! But turning those things into something else - into joy, or silliness, or laughter - takes a lil' zhuzhing. So that's the kind of Maggie I'm bringing to the stage. It's me but zhuzhed up a little bit; like adding hot sauce to microwave mac & cheese, it's edible on its own but now you've gone and made it gourmet. In case you can't tell, I'm not much of a chef.

Being a comedian isn't a straightforward career choice - why do it?

It's funny, because intellectually I know it isn't a straightforward career choice, but in the reality of my day-to-day life it feels like the most natural thing for me to do. I was pursuing a totally different career when I first decided to follow the insane actor/writer/comedian hyphen person life. I stopped doing theatre, studied Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies in college, and then went on to work in editorial and marketing departments. That initial change to drop everything and instead listen to the very loud voice in my head telling me to take improv classes definitely felt like a full 180, tectonic shift at the time. But now that I'm a decade in I can't imagine having stayed on that same other track. I really thought I was going to become a professor! Given how much I enjoy publicly speaking about feelings and sex I think it's safe to say I would have been fired very quickly. Everyone is better off this way.

The Edinburgh Fringe is so expensive, especially if you have to fly the Atlantic before paying through the nose for accommodation. Why not put the money in a nice safe bank account and make some interest?

This is something I've asked myself every day since signing my contract! It's the most I've ever put into any creative project and my relationship with my bank account is currently fraught to say the least. However, there's something very exciting and gratifying about allowing so much financial investment to go directly into myself. A younger me would have struggled to think I was worth that kind of funding, but 2023 me finds it kinda exhilarating. It's empowering! Or at least that's the "reframe" my therapist has drilled into me. And I mean listen, the US government just announced they are in contact with aliens so the least I can do is put my money where my dreams are while I still have the chance.

Now you are in Edinburgh what are your impressions? (You don't have to be nice.)

This isn't me being nice, and this isn't me trying to suck up to any of the locals, but I love it here so much it has me questioning why I never tried to move, live, study, do anything here before now. Obviously there's the beauty of the city, duh. I'm not saying anything new there. But the proximity to wildlife? The walkability of the city? The bookstores, the people, the pubs?! I'm a huge fan. 10/10 city, can't wait to come back, already sad to leave.

What shows are you planning to see?

I'm really excited to see some shows from the states, like Joy's Bed and Breakfast by Jessy Morner-Ritt and Isabella Gerasole, Magic for Animals by Liz Toonkel, Grown Up Orphan Annie by Katherine Bourne Taylor, and Six Chick Flicks... by KK Apple and Kerry Ipema, Side by Side by Maggie Crane, and Sophie Sucks Face by Sophie Zucker. All shows I've wanted to see back home but haven't had the chance.

Some others I'm excited to check out: Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel, because Jane Austen raised me; as many dance and theatre productions as I can because I'll need a good antidote to comedians; and the new shows from Bridget Christie, Sara Pascoe, and Rhod Gilbert because I'm such a fan and don't ever have the opportunity to see them in the states.

Where would you like us to see your name next? Stage, TV, silver screen...?

If I could somehow manage all three? That's the dream, baby! But if I don't manage to pull off an artistic hat trick right out the gates, then I'd love to work in TV and film. I've written something I'm hoping to film this fall, and with everyone in my world on strike it's tough to know how possible any of those things are right now. So until then, I'd love to grace as many stages as will have me.