What is the best or most inspiring show you’ve seen at the Festivals?
I adored watching Chicken by Eva O’Connor and Horses by Elf Lyons at the Adelaide Fringe this year! Two incredible AFAB performers who create their own work and do fantastic, strange, absurdly meaningful things onstage!
What do you do to relax in August?
Living with a chronic illness and history of severe mental health issues, relaxation will be key in ensuring I can literally make it through the Fringe without crumbling. It’s something that I’m trying to be really conscious of. Burnout is real for any performer or audience member during festivals – but living with a disability adds a considerably higher risk. My go-to hobbies/fixations at the moment are crocheting and knitting (I’ve become a little obsessed). I’m lucky to have my partner coming with me too and I’m keen to drinks cup of tea with them and do a crossword (I’m aware I sound like I’m 92 years old here and am proud of it!).
What show are you most looking forward to seeing in August, and why?
Oh what a GOOD QUESTION!
I’m SO keen to be seeing other works by disabled and chronically ill artists and all of the queer and female-led solo shows like mine! The programming at Summerhall is super exciting too.
Tell me a little more about your show and what audiences can expect?
Shitbag is a darkly comedic solo show about Crohn’s Disease, mania, and casual sex.
It follows the conventions of the well-worn Fringe tradition of sex-driven solo confessionals such as Fleabag, but it’s about ostomy bags (literally shit bags), being diagnosed with a bowel disease, and the manic sexual episode that I had following my diagnosis.
It’s a life-affirming piece about the highs and lows of being the ‘youngest and hottest person on the gastroenterology ward’.
Shitbag is my debut show that’s gone overwhelmingly well back home and I’m so proud to be bringing it to Edinburgh for my international (and Fringe) debut.
Can you talk about some of the creative team involved?
My primary collaborator is Justin Gardam who has been the sound and lighting designer from the beginning. He’s an angel and has been incredibly supportive of me both personally and professionally. I’ve done a lot of this work solo (writing, performing, producing, designing, directing??) but I’ve had the joy of being supported by heaps of people in the theatre community back home in Melbourne. I’m also chuffed to be working with Sharon from SM Publicity and Stephanie from Scissor Kick to help me bring it to its first international audience (and to try my hardest to avoid burning out).
Where do you draw inspiration from for your work, both in terms of creation and performance?
I wrote Shitbag about my experiences being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and the manic, highly sexual episode that I experienced afterwards due to my prescribed steroid medication. I was told then that I have a ‘one in ten chance’ of needing a colostomy bag which some people with bowel diseases (including bowel cancers) require (often as a life-saving surgery (a literal shit bag). But the title also references the longstanding tradition of solo confessional works such as Fleabag that I was hyper-aware of whilst writing. So that was also a spring board. (I’m pretty proud of the title – I think it’s quite clever).
Looking at this production, how would you say it links to previous work personally and thematically?
It’s a painfully and cheekily self-aware nod to the Fleabag tradition, I hope. Describing it as being ‘like Fleabag but about Crohn’s Disease’ as a shorthand has been useful, though the similarities between the pieces are mostly in its form (and the sexual content). It’s a darkly comedic solo play where there is one ‘chair’ in the middle of the stage. But in my version, the chair is a commode/an accessible toilet seat.
Aside from that, the work takes a deep dive into being diagnosed with a chronic illness, with an invisible disability. It looks at the ways in which we stigmatise mental health and physical illnesses and how these two things often interact. It’s also a super horny, queer work about sexual and bodily autonomy.
I also hope that it unveils the reality of living with invisible disability and mental illness which I believe we still don’t see enough theatre about. This is my very first work, and I’ve been thrilled at how it’s been received back home. It’s now won multiple awards and I’m so incredibly chuffed to be bringing it to new audiences in Edinburgh.
What do you find special about this work and why do you think there’s an appetite for it?
I’m really proud of Shitbag. It’s become the vehicle with which my career has flourished back home and it gives a voice to my experiences with invisible disability, mental illness and being genderqueer.
I think that there is an appetite (or that there SHOULD be) an appetite to see work about disability and chronic illness. Theatre is so infrequently accessible – and even my show isn’t accessible to everyone, but I truly do think that seeing works by and for disabled people more often would be an incredibly positive thing. Perspectives that sit outside of the ‘mainstream’ are so important in art and in theatre and I hope to support more disabled artists in the future with my work.
Why is this an important story to tell?
Shitbag is my way of educating audiences about Bowel Diseases and chronic illness – and to smash through the taboo surrounding these types of ‘shitty’ diagnosis.
It took me years to get a diagnosis as is so often the case with young, seemingly healthy female-presenting people. I hope that other people are encouraged to advocate for themselves within the medical system and for ‘well’ audiences to consider that you never know who might be struggling internally. Disability can be invisible and I hope to give it a platform.
What would you like audiences to take away from seeing you/this production at the Fringe?
There’s a life-affirming tone to this show, particularly by the end. My experience of a manic episode and a shitty/bloody medical emergency left me feeling that life is too short and that it needs to be lived and loved as much as is possible.
I hope that audiences might feel uplifted and that those with similar experiences feel represented authentically.
Do you tend to take inspiration from events happening in the world around you in terms of your work? Do you think artists have a responsibility to respond to what’s happening?
Absolutely. I think that creating work that is aware of its audience’s context is wildly important (even if that means knowingly distracting them from the terrible-ness at play at the moment). During my show I ad-lib quite a bit between the set text. I always try and keep the work fresh and present. During the latest run I told my audience to enrol to vote (before our federal election)!
How do you feel about the current arts landscape in your country and your part in it? Does it excite you and inspire you to keep pushing the boat out?
I was a COVID drama school graduate and struggled for many years to ‘find my place’ within a theatre and acting industry that had almost completely shut down.
I tried to fit boxes and to ‘people-please’ in order to find any work but it wasn’t until I embraced who I was and stepped outside of the arts spaces that I gained a fresh perspective and voice that seemed to ‘break through’. Embracing my queer gender and disability, and creating work that represents these stories onstage has been the best thing that’s happened to my ‘career’. It’s been brilliant watching companies like Rawcus and Ilberijerri back home work. Disabled and First Nations-led companies are (or should be) thought of the forefront of the industry back home. Particularly Indigenous stories.
Why are arts festivals such as the Fringe so important for international exchange?
I guess I’m yet to find out! I’m WILDLY grateful to be travelling to Edinburgh with a Touring Award from Melbourne Fringe (supported by Summerhall). It’s also my first time travelling to this side of the world for work, or performing overseas. Being here I’m realising how seemingly ‘isolated’ so-called Australia is, and how lucky I am to be able to perform at what now seems like an international marketplace such as Edinburgh Fringe.
Have you got your eye on any other shows that are part of the programme?
I’ve got my eye on TOO many shows ! The programming at Summerhall Arts ALONE is wildly exciting and I know I’ll be spending a lot of my time wandering those halls.
Pickled Republic and Slugs look like brilliant absurd offerings; 300 Paintings is another Australian artist’s show about mania; Flick, Nuisa and Pump are three solo shows from women in Melbourne who I’m keen to support; Baby in the Mirror is exciting as a genderqueer artist; and BabyFleaReinderBag seems like a complimentary fit for my Fleabag-esque offering!
What’s next for you and how are you feeling about the future in general?
I speak about it during the end of my show, but I’m really keen to create something new. This is my first solo work and it’s gone overwhelmingly well back home (I won a Green Room Award)! Though I’m now keen to create something more absurd, more imaginative and less autobiographical as retelling a version of the darkest and most intense period of my life on repeat can be taxing. I’m thinking of writing a show about being a carrot.
How can Edinburgh audiences keep up with you beyond the festival?
I’m on instagram @hayley.jemma @shitbag.the.play @tinytablereads
Anything else?
Thanks so so much for having me! All the best for the festival season!!!
Shitbag, Summerhall, 31 Jul-25 Aug 25 (not 4, 11, 18), 4.15pm