As part as our Edinburgh Fringe 2024 coverage we are running a series of interviews with artists and creatives that are taking part in the festival.
In this interview we speak to Jessica Regan about her show 16 Postcodes.
Where did your arts career begin?
I would trace it back to the GAA hall in Clonmel, Tipperary at the Gable Youth Theatre in the mid ‘90s but professionally speaking in Cork after University. An amazing lecturer, Dr Cal Duggan asked me to be in her adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. We were meant to do about five performances but it ended up being about a year of my life. I was about 21, half my life ago and it truly was that great fork in the road.
16 Postcodes is a deeply personal show comprising of monologues drawn from my real-life city stories of trying to tame a beast of a city!
How would you describe the style of the show?
Pure storytelling, with a little help from the audience who will select which Postcodes I’ll share each day. Together we will take a journey through different places I’ve lived in London. It will never be the same show twice.
I wanted to do something where I could create a mini-community each time. As an actor you don’t often get to break the fourth wall and I really wanted to share these stories but collaborate with the audience in the telling of them. So I’ve been experimenting with that idea for the last year or so and it has been better than I ever could have imagined… Just joyous.
I’m trying! To be active, eat well, work on the show every day, all of that good stuff. It’s new territory, I’m more used to some one telling me what to do than captaining my own ship but its great...to make your own rules and curate your own process. It definitely pushes you forward as an artist. But I do love more conventional rehearsing as well.. I suppose it’s about challenging yourself so you never get too comfortable.
Other than the show, what’s something you’re looking forward to doing in Edinburgh this year?
I love Edinburgh and all it has to offer. I’ll be spending time in Leith and Musselburgh as well as central Edinburgh and it is such a beautiful city. I’m a big walker so looking forward to a few hikes and jaunts.
I love Edinburgh and all it has to offer. I’ll be spending time in Leith and Musselburgh as well as central Edinburgh and it is such a beautiful city. I’m a big walker so looking forward to a few hikes and jaunts.
My collaborators-Tom Salinsky my producer, Ira Mandela Siobhan my movement director as well as a host of associate artists who have helped bring 16 Postcodes about- I get so enlivened by the company of other writers and makers. It has been a joy to bring all these brilliant people I’ve met over the years together on this project one way or another.
What do you hope an audience takes away from seeing the show?
That they are entertained and delighted for an hour first and foremost and also that they feel seen and understood even if it’s only tangentially. Yes it’s about London but it’s about leaving home, looking for home, falling in and out of love, negotiating perpetual uncertainty…ultimately I hope that they feel a connection. That’s the dream for me.
Bunker One, Pleasance Courtyard, 3.30pm every day except the 12th.Please come on down!
Tickets for 16 Postcodes are available from https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/16-postcodes#:~:text=Each%20show%20is%20drawn%20from,all%2Dtoo%2Dopen%20heart.
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