Comedic Celebration of Difference at Midlands Fringe Festival
- Alison Manning
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
The very first Midlands Fringe Festival is happening this weekend, organised by Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists with the help of Arts Council funding. It features 15 fringe shows and 2 headline comedy shows in 4 venues in Wolverhampton across three days, 25-27 July.
In the tradition of the Edinburgh Free Fringe, they are pay-as-you-feel performances. Each of the café/pub venues seats around 40 people, so the audience is advised to turn up early to ensure they get in. All money collected in a hat at the end of each show goes directly to the performer.
I tried out the Lych Gate Tavern for the first show of the second day of the fringe. Snuggled in an upstairs room in this characterful ancient pub in the centre of Wolverhampton, we settled in to be entertained by Emilie Lauren Jones in the debut of Queen of Spades, billed as “A one-woman comedy-poetry show and celebration of weirdness”. The set is minimalist but intriguing, with a couple of bar stools facing each other, one of which is occupied by a large toy elephant. Emilie herself wears a decadent tiara-like crown.
The show opens in a unique manner, with Emilie appearing to a recording of “Dyspraxic Decides to be a Performance Poet,” seemingly a set of instructions as Emilie comes on, gets herself set up and has comedic mishaps with her (prop) microphone stand. The performance of this introductory poem is both entertaining, particularly with the physical humour, as well as educating as we learn about the stresses of dyspraxia.
The whole show proceeds in this manner, as we learn about Emilie’s life growing up and the stresses caused by perceived difference or weirdness, in reality neurodiversity, anxiety and her eventual realisation of her a-sexuality. These could all be potentially heavy subjects, but both the poems, and the inter poem chat/stories are delivered with such a lightness of touch and a depth of humour that never at any point do we feel we are being lectured at or indeed anything but entertained with meaning.
Through her third poem, “Sometimes Dyspraxia means…”, an enchanting telling of fantastical things in a jumbled manner, Emilie playfully highlights the confusing bewilderment dyspraxia can bring. In her fourth, “Grandmother’s footsteps”, based on the playground game also known as “What time is it Mr Wolf”, we are captivated by Emilie’s immersive and enchanting retelling of the game and, despite the confusing rules, willing her on to victory. As a well as an entertaining poet, Emilie is a renowned Workshop Facilitator, and she can’t resist sharing with us that this one is a ‘hermit crab poem,’ one that uses the structure of another text, such as recipe, but in this case a set of instructions.
Emilie moves on to discuss her struggles to fit in when people at school became obsessed by crushes and dating and how she studied couples to work out what it was all about. Again, this could be a heavy subject but instead is explored as a hilarious study of humans in a David Attenborough- style observational poem entitled “Dating Planet.” In this witty rendition, Emilie, complete with clipboard, plays both narrator and waiter, whilst the dating couple are played by the aforementioned cuddly elephant and a willing volunteer from the audience, perched atop bar stools, making eyes at each other and edging closer together. This is followed by “Choosing Carrots” about Emilie’s brave attempt at dating normality, coming before the poignant “At twenty-six I didn’t think I existed” when these attempts failed.
This is ultimately a celebratory show, as demonstrated through the final trio of poems, reflecting how Emilie came to discover, accept and own her a-sexuality. “I don’t want to Have Sex with a Tree” addresses, with a delightful honesty and humour, all the questions you might have wanted to ask about a-sexuality, including the ones you hadn’t even thought of yet. A well-deserved encore explores all the paths Emilie’s life might have taken, but questions where the poetry might have been in that.
Ultimately this show is charming and captivating, and, whilst not shying away from difficult subjects manages to be profoundly funny. If you’re quick, there may still be time to catch the remaining events of the Midlands Fringe Festival, details of which can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/midlandsfringe2025
I was privileged to see this debut of Emilie’s show but hopefully it will be the first of many performances. To find out more about her work and future performances you can follow her website or social media: https://www.emilielaurenjones.co.uk/.
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