Juliette Burton

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 28th July 2023

It was the first of times, it was the worst of times. This week, we wave Juliette Burton off to the Edinburgh Fringe, where she'll be performing a show called No Brainer.

"My brain has broken several times in my life," says the comic and mental health campaigner, who crosses those streams onstage.

"When it happened a couple of years ago, yet again, I decided to investigate exactly why. Why does my brain work differently to others and how can I reprogram it to work better? Rebuilding a brain - or in fact a life - has never been so fun. I should know, I've done it enough times.

"It's a rebuilding show, a recovery show. Not just recovery from a break-up and from mental illness but from the pandemic. Sometimes we must experience a forest fire to allow new growth. That breakdown had to happen so that a rebuild could happen. This show is the flagstone upon which a stronger me is being built."

Perhaps tellingly, this Fringe stint is a manageable-looking ten-dayer - 2nd to the 11th - rather than the infamously full-on whole month. Is that the way forward, from now on?

"A shorter run is certainly the way forward for me this year, followed by a tour and other festivals around the country. Smaller festivals are doing big things.

"I don't yet know whether it's what I'll do in the future, I need to see what happens this year first. One step at a time. To some, doing Edinburgh Fringe at all seems crazy - losing money even if you sell out. But I know crazy, I was sectioned under the mental health act. Edinburgh isn't crazy. Edinburgh is the lifeforce of creativity, unleashing the wildness within."

Let the wildness begin.

First gig?

My first ever solo stand-up routine was at Brighton Fringe in 2012. I'd been performing for years as part of a double act and in sketch shows, this was my first stand-up.

I wore a pink dress and tried to do material about my mental health history. I tried... I did not succeed!

I left that gig wanting to hide away and never try again. But that was only a part of me. Comedy brings out Who I Really Am, and that part of me was in love. I knew I had more to give. Every gig is a chance to learn.

Favourite show, ever?

I loved performing in Australia and New Zealand, partly because it's sunny there! The one thing Edinburgh lacks is vitamin D. But I've loved performing at Edinburgh and on tour to sold out rooms... I particularly loved performing in front of thousands of people for the BBC. I loved a gig at the start of 2020 at a charity event I was performing at with Sikisa, Alison Spittle, Ada Campe, Deborah Frances-White and many others.

But while I've had some great gigs, the single favourite of my career has to be my next - the one I'm about to do. Because whatever has come before has led to this. You're only as good as your last gig.

Worst gig?

My first gig was probably the worst I've performed. More recently, there was one new material night where the bloke on the line-up before me sang parody songs about being sucked off by a vacuum cleaner. If I didn't have daddy issues before then I did now. I haven't been able to do housework since. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Failures can turn into future successes, if you learn from them. I never fail, I either win or I learn. However, I've learned a lot.

Which one person influenced your comedy life most significantly?

I could say 'my therapist' since I do tend to write a lot of jokes after our sessions. And she told me to write things down which is how I started to find the funny. But I'll opt for my ex-fiancé and now best friend Frankie Lowe.

Meeting him meant I moved to Edinburgh, devoted my life to comedy and the Fringe. He helped me regularly find the funny in dark moments, he filmed my shows, toured with me as my technician in Australia on my first tour out there and he supported my crazy ideas for crazy shows. Now though, I'm out there on my own, ready for what comes next.

And who's the most disagreeable person you've come across in the business?

There's been a Weinstein-style person or two. And one comedian who publicly criticised my work. I welcome criticism but I'd prefer it to my face. However, for me I'd rather focus on the good humans who spread support and love. And there's far more of those people. So I'll leave this answer at that.

Is there one routine/gag you loved, that audiences inexplicably didn't?

I have a routine about star signs which hasn't found its place. The bit is about how star signs are the way all political systems and nations should be in that they're not forcing anyone into anything. As a belief system, they're fairly chill. I love it, audiences like it but it doesn't get the big laughs it deserves... not yet anyway.

Your best or worst Edinburgh moment, offstage?

In 2012, I flyered a guy who came to see the show. When I flyer, I like to chat with people, get to know them, be friendly. The next year he came to see my next show and afterwards told me the day I'd first flyered him he'd been planning on ending his life. Turns out he had cancer, going through a divorce, was scared he'd lose his children and he'd had enough. He'd gone to Edinburgh Fringe for one final hurrah and that was going to be it.

He said the way I chatted to him when I flyered him felt like the first act of kindness anyone had shown him in a really long time. He then said, in his words, he "felt obligated to see the show" (maybe that's how I sell tickets? I guilt trip people into it?!) and he found the show so uplifting that he changed his mind. That's the power of not just kindness, but the Edinburgh Fringe and comedy. It can change minds and change lives.

Any reviews, heckles or post-gig reactions stick in the mind?

Steve Bennett from Chortle calling me "winsome" in 2013 has stayed with me. Edinburgh Festivals Magazine called me "a force to be reckoned with". I questioned those words a few times over the last four years. Undeniably, that force is still there. It might be even growing, quietly, stronger.

How do you feel about where your career is at, right now?

Excited, curious and quietly calm. Chose not to have babies but instead have show babies and although I questioned that choice more than ever in the last few years, it is the choice I continue to make.

Ideas live forever. Ideas grow. My ideas can't be held back. That force is too strong. There's something growing inside of me. This show, and the next and the next, is building on all that's come before. This Edinburgh Fringe is integral to that. This is the show to build a bridge between the before and after, between the old and the new. And I think a lot of people need that right now.

The morning I write this, a BBC producer chatted with me saying "I don't know why you're not on all the panel shows". I don't know yet why not either. The force is still growing and there's something bigger coming. Just like comedy, it's all about timing. I've more to give. A hell of a lot more.