We caught up with MA Acting - Contemporary 2017 graduate, Holly Boyden, to find out more about her show, It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut.
The show, which is the recipient of the 2021 National Partnership Award with Curve Theatre, Leicester, will be performed live at Pleasance Downstairs, from 10-14 August, and online as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from 16-29 August.
What is It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut about?
It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut is a dark comedy play about sexuality and sexual health steeped in the beautiful bluntness of the rural East Midlands. The story follows two young women, one kind of a lesbian, one kind of a liability as they negotiate the responsibilities and realities of having one more hole than a man has.
The play collides the living with the dead, friendship with grief, and seeks to reawaken our relationship with a dazzling matriarchal heritage that we’ve been encouraged to forget.
How did the show come about?
The play was developed from lived experiences of sexual ill-health and bisexuality, and was coloured by events I experienced growing up in the rural East Midlands. In my very early twenties, I contracted HPV and had moderate cervical changes (resulting in post-coital bleeding and pain), long before I was old enough to access a smear test on the NHS. This experience and the resulting battle to get treatment, coincided with my friend accidentally getting pregnant, and negotiating parenthood in less-than-ideal circumstances.
The play has, over the course of the last few years, grown far beyond the real-life stories which inspired it, and has been infused with the supernatural, and some absurd and lesser-known aspects of British and Irish folklore.
How did your training at Central impact on the work you’re doing now?
I started writing It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut just after I graduated from Central, and my time working as an actor really inspired me to start writing myself. One of the best, (if, at the time, scariest and harshest) pieces of advice that I ever got when training was that I would need to make my own work. And, well…I’m glad I have.
This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe will be a hybrid of both in person and digital shows. Can you talk to us about the format your show will take, and what influenced that decision?
I was fortunate enough to get the National Partnership from the Curve and Pleasance in early 2020, and the play was due to get a full month’s run at the Edinburgh Fringe that year. We all know what happened next… So what with the apocalypse and all, I’m ever so grateful that my partner venues have been able to continue their incredible support. Due to the uncertainty around the Fringe going ahead this year, and delayed changes to restrictions, the Pleasance decided that National Partnership shows would perform in London, not Edinburgh this year. Our live performances will however be recorded for the Ed Fringe Player to view on demand.
This year’s festival will be quite different, what challenges or opportunities has this presented?
I’m definitely not alone in saying that the uncertainty that has plagued the festival and our industry in general has bred widespread anxiety, the kind that has deep, wily, tendrils that will be difficult, but not impossible to shift. It was hard at times to even know where to start, and as a result of so much uncertainty I decided to self-produce, for the very first time, which has been an incredible, horrible, beautiful challenge in itself. It’s been a struggle for everyone, but I am so grateful to my venues and to my company for their love, support and patience.
What are you most looking forward to about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year?
Even though we’re still not able to be a part of the festival in Edinburgh itself, I am valuing everything that I’m learning as a producer and still have to learn about how the Fringe works, especially as it’s my very first one ever. I’m excited about being back on stage after several years off and reclaiming that part of my identity and sharing this story with the world. More than anything however, I’m looking forward to being able to say that I got through one of the most difficult periods of my life, artistically and otherwise, and that my decision to jump into the darkness paid off.
Do you have any advice to share with others who are interested in taking a show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
As I say, I’m pretty much a Fringe virgin, so giving people advice feels a lot like the blind leading the blind. What I would say is, do it. And that when the going gets tough, as it will, just breathe. You got this far. Don’t give up now. Remember, that if you can produce during a pandemic you can do anything, you’re now superhuman - congratulations! No matter what happens next, we should all be proud of the fact that we persevered through one of the strangest years the Edinburgh Fringe will ever see, and we lived to tell the tale.
What are your plans after The Fringe?
I would absolutely love to tour the show, and I’m in the process of sounding out venues and considering offers. We’d love the show to reach as many people as possible, particularly young women, and I’m really interested in rural touring.
I will also plan on flexing my tiny wings as a writer producer, exploring other projects and opportunities in TV, including the TV adaptation of It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut.
