Culture

Theatre Watch: Zoë Coombs Marr

The show is Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life - catch it at the Fringe in Edinburgh.

Gaydar Girls

Jul 3, 2024 — 3 min read

The new show from Zoë Coombs Marr is Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life.

Zoë is attempting to chronicle her own history in a way that only someone with an adult ADHD diagnosis can do. Delving into her archive of jokes, organised by year on scraps of paper, and with a bit of help from a giant Excel spreadsheet, audiences can expect a free-wheeling hour of stand-up, that will evolve and change every night.

We caught up with Zoë for a behind-the-scenes look at the show.

This show is a move away from character-based comedy into more personal storytelling? Why was this the right moment for you to take that direction?

You know, technically the character stuff was more of a “move away”. I started as a comic and sort of diverted into a character - Dave, a parody of a terrible male comedian - mostly out of frustration, and now I’m back where I started, or at least on that same track.

I actually hung up my Dave shoes a few years ago, and I have been doing my own standup again - like my special Bossy Bottom - for a while. But, last year, I realised that even as myself, I never really talked about my actual life very much. So, I started cataloguing, in a giant spreadsheet, everything that’d happened to me, everything I’d eaten and seen and smelled and the people I’d met and the bones I’d broken.

It was like one of those dreams where you discover a whole extra room in your apartment - there was just a lot of stuff - all these stories that I’d just never really thought about.

I didn’t know if people would want to hear about any of it but I took the spreadsheet onstage, and started working through it. Just sharing it all. I’m not sure why now - maybe because I’ve accumulated enough stories, or too many - it was time for a stocktake.

This show is a bit like cleaning out my closet and holding up different miscellaneous junk I’ve forgotten about. Like - ooh, does anyone want to hear about the time I met Cate Blanchett? Or the night I fell asleep at an illegal warehouse rave and I got woken up by gentle prods from the riot police? How about the frog in the toilet? The show’s different every night, and it’s a delight.

It seems like people do want to hear about those things.

Are you drawing inspiration from the film Everything Everywhere All At Once? Are you going to give audiences some Michelle Yeoh-esque martial arts mayhem?

Nope. It’s just similar words. And no martial arts - although I can do a great prat-fall.

If you come on the right night - it’s different every time - you might get to hear about me being in a pub brawl or breaking my arm when I got chucked off a homophobic horse while making a queer documentary. I fell out of a tree once. That’s kind of martial-arts-ish, right?

Is the prospect of taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe more appealing than therapy?

It costs about the same. And there are bars at the Fringe which makes it more fun than therapy. Then again, there are no improv troupes at therapy, and you’re not going to be handed a flyer by a mime when you’re on a shrink’s couch, so they’re probably on par?

You've flagged that you're going to be reflecting on your adult ADHD diagnosis? Is it challenging to make ADHD funny?

Not at all. But it is hard to remember to tell the jokes, and which order they came in, and why I walked into the room in the first place. You know the thing about rooms is - what’s that noise? Sorry, what was the question?

What do you hope that people feel when they come and watch Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life?

I hope they laugh. That’s the main thing. And not just a bit. Like I like people to walk out with a sore face from laughing. And a bit of a headspin. And maybe a wet seat.

They might learn a bit about spreadsheets, and there’s probably some meaning in there about life and perspective and mortality and joy or something but mainly, it’s about that sore face. It’s a fun time.