In a series of interviews, we'll reflect on this year's Edinburgh Fringe with artists and creatives who performed at the festival, learning how it went and hearing more about their work.
In this interview, we speak with Chiara Fumanti about the run of The Extraordinary Life of a Rat Racer.
With the run in Edinburgh now complete, how do you reflect on the time at the Fringe?
It has definitely been a journey! I had a fantastic time and I can’t wait to do it again, but I’d lie if I said it’s all been positive. I have cried, felt disheartened, and really had to focus on learning to look at what was being thrown at me objectively and professionally, rather than taking it personally. That’s much easier said than done, though. When you’re performing, whether you’ve written the play or not, you are exposing a part of yourself. And any comment, or empty seat, or Instagram post that shows how brilliant someone else is doing, can make you spiral quickly. It’s so hard not to compare yourself with the other 4000 shows you are effectively competing against. When you’ve written and produced the play, it’s even easier to doubt every single choice you’ve made since you put the first word on paper. So, in the hardest moments, I had to keep telling myself that I believe in my work, it’s my baby, but just like a baby it’s going to grow organically and I am allowed to let it become what it wants to become. Any feedback is good, and there’s lots I am willing to look over and change if need be. Still, not everybody is going to understand or like my work, and that’s ok. So I also had to tell myself to believe in the choices I’ve made. Especially when it comes to the main supporting pillars of the play – the choices that hold the show together. In our case, for example, the disjointed nature of the plot and the gory language.
Our play simply cannot be linear – it discusses intrusive thoughts and PTSD flashbacks. It follows the nonlinearity of thought. The gory language is intense, I am aware, but so are intrusive thoughts. My aim with this play was to represent as honestly as possible what the experience of a person that suffers from intrusive thoughts is, and I cannot do that if I censor the graphic nature of them. Without these two fundamental pillars, the soul of the play gets lost. So I think my biggest reflection, when I think about my time at the Fringe, is this struggle to find and maintain a balance between what you believe to be right and being flexible and ready to absorb feedback which could make your show better, as well as perhaps a bit of distance from the show, so that you don’t drive yourself mad by taking any comment/thing-that-you-think-should-have-happened-but-didn’t like it’s your biggest failure yet.
What is the biggest lesson you learned during the run in Edinburgh?
One thing I realised very quickly: no matter how much you think you’ve prepped, you are going to feel underprepared. In my case specifically, as a first-time producer and a very tiny team, even though I spent months and months meticulously researching and prepping, it felt like there was an overwhelming amount of things that I simply did not think about, a vast amount of people I should have emailed but didn’t, and so on and so forth. So I guess, be ready for everything and bring your laptop/tablet around, Word is REALLY hard to use on mobile.
How did the reality of your run compare to what you envisioned during rehearsals?
I suppose for us it might have been a little different, as we already ran the show a few times before presenting it to Edinburgh. We premiered it at the Voilà Festival 2025, then toured it around some pub theatres in London to develop it. I am glad we did, even though it was costly and it meant that we didn’t qualify for a few awards, but at least I knew that we had a show. Edinburgh is already so full of variables, I wanted to at least have the certainty that the show works. Always with room from improvement, of course – and, actually, we found that by watching as much theatre as we could in Edinburgh, we were so incredibly inspired by the wonderful work we saw that it inevitably bled into our work. The show possibly changed more in that second week of the festival than it did throughout the six months of prep! Not necessarily structurally, but our intentions shifted, our approach to the characters refreshed, it just generally felt more alive.
What was the biggest surprise—positive or negative—once you actually got in front of Fringe audiences?
That is so hard to find an audience! I hadn’t really set any expectations on audience numbers as I did expect it to be hard to sell, since we were just one of over 4000 shows, and we had a very late slot in the first week, and a very early one on the second. Still, I was hoping that with some clever marketing ideas we might get a few more tickets – turns out that our flyering tactic worked really well for flyering, less for translating those flyers into ticket sales. People seemed to be really interested, but then for some reason that interest didn’t translate into sales. I have thought long and hard about the reasons why, but I fear that might be a whole other article!
Positive surprise – the people we met. The feeling of being part of a much bigger community of like-minded people is absolutely unmatched. Made our experience a thousand times better!
Was there a specific moment on or off stage that defined the Edinburgh experience for you this year?
Yes! There is a moment that encapsulates what my EdFringe experience has been. We were nominated for the Birds of Paradise Exceptional Theatre Award by Neurodiverse Review, and we were absolutely buzzing! During the award ceremony, I received an email saying we had a new review in. At the end of the ceremony I checked the review… 2 stars. It’s the only negative review we’ve had, and I think it came from somebody who was never going to like our show, it was simply not for them. But I just thought how ironic it is, to be here celebrating the excellence of our show, and receiving a 2 star rating for it at the same time. I went from feeling elated to demoralised REALLY quickly. And that’s why it encapsulates my EdFringe experience – it’s a rollercoaster of emotions, from one to the other with no warning and no time to rest on a feeling for too long!
I also have the reverse of this though. I was sitting at the bar with some friends, feeling a little down. Then somebody approached me and said he came to see the show a few days prior and loved it. That’s it, he said he just wanted to tell me. I was so surprised and amazed and emotional and everything in between – again, I was thrown from an emotion to the other so quickly!
How did you manage the physical and mental stamina required to perform daily in that high-density environment?
That’s a hard question for me to answer as I don’t think I did – or at least, I don’t think I had a specific system to do so. And I am weary that I don’t want to say that the way I approach work is healthy – in fact, I should probably openly say that I don’t think it is. I am neurodivergent, and it’s really hard for me to rest. My brain is constantly thinking about the show, almost obsessively. I run (and thrive) on adrenaline: I generally prefer long days, and I tend not to stop, because the moment I stop, tiredness and guilt hit me. I can only take a break if I know that the task that needs doing is going to be done – if I start procrastinating, I know I’m not going to stop, and then I’m going to get anxious because of the procrastination, and I get stuck in that loop. For me it’s about bringing a task to conclusion, so that it’s not weighing on my brain when I am meant to rest.
On the other hand, Andrea (my fiancée and other half of the company) needs breaks. He needs to rest and he has this incredible ability to just shut down his brain when he wants to (which I am in awe of). So, being a company of 2, with no possibility of making a flyering rota or relying on other team members, we had to compromise on the way we approach work, and we met somewhere in the middle. He reached out of his comfort zone a bit, pushed himself a bit further, and I forced myself to go grab a beer or go have a nap in the park. I think this compromise allowed us to manage our stamina and our mental load.
What also helped – I have said this before but I’ll say it again – were the wonderful people we met along the way. Suddenly going to a show together or going to grab a beer together became part of the experience, and it combined business with leisure – best of both worlds!
How did you handle reviews and word-of-mouth chatter while still having to go out and perform every night?
Luckily we haven’t had any bad reviews until the 2 star one I mentioned earlier, which came when we had already closed the show. We did have quiet audiences though, which can be hard to read and can feel like negative feedback (even if that’s not necessarily the case). In those cases, we supported each other. We tried to be objective about how the performance went, if there’s anything we could do differently, if it felt good for us. Tried to give each other constructive feedback if need be. Then moved onto the next thing – a drink, a show, chips cheese and gravy. Chips cheese and gravy fixes everything.
Did any audience reactions or feedback lead to real-time tweaks in the script or performance?
I think any show that has an element of comedy in it is performed differently depending on how the audience reacts to it. In The Extraordinary Life of a Rat Racer, Andrea plays and interacts with the audience a fair bit. He has free reign in terms of improvisation and adding to the script. That kind of role can be really challenging, because you’re vibing off the audience’s energy and you just cannot predict an audience reaction. So his performance definitely changed a bit depending on the energy in the room. My character is much more dramatic, so I don’t have as much scope for change the same way he does. My changes were more inspired by other artists and plays I saw, as well as simply trying to refresh the way I said things occasionally to try and stay as connected as I could to the character, which, oddly enough, can be harder to do in autobiographical plays – in my experience, at least.
What is one piece of advice you would give to anyone who would want to take a show to the 2027 Ed Fringe?
Don’t be afraid of being a nuisance. Do the silly thing on the mile. Be cringe. Go speak to people. Follow up on emails. Of course, don’t harass anyone with 20 emails a day, but a follow-up after a month or so is absolutely fine. Embrace the discomfort and go for it!
The show has enjoyed London runs earlier this year as well as now in Edinburgh, what are the future plans, if any, for the show?
If anything, Edinburgh has reinforced my idea that making a living out of theatre can be possible. First of all, we are heading to the Liverpool International Theatre Festival in Canada in October. After that, although there are no plans set in stone at the moment, we are planning to bring the show to more Fringe Festivals around Europe (and perhaps the world!). We are also starting to work on something new, but you might need to wait a little longer before we give you any details…
Where can people follow your work?
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We can’t wait to see what’s next!
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