Lorna-Rose Treen ‘Now That’s What I Call Characters’ Interview

You’ve been pretending to be other people since you were a kid. What were your earliest characters like?

I used to love playing rats, Regina from Mean Girls, and any lead in any musical. At way too young-an-age I learnt the whole of the Producers and would sing the entire film to myself in my room. Sometimes I would find and print off the whole of a Disney film script and make my friends learn it with me and we would perform it to my suffering parents.

A lot of your characters play with the way women are portrayed on TV and film. Which character type do you find the most fun to parody?

One of my favourite things to do is watch films of any genre - especially where the women are underserved - like the waitress at the back of a diner in a heist film, or the surly secretary - and make those side characters the protagonists. Why not spend time with the niece of the banker who’s in the back of the car with her headphones on? I also love being like ‘cool this is the male trope for X, what if it just happened to be woman’? For example, I play a Cowboy who has guns for hands ala Edward Scissorhands. The great thing about being a woman is there’s so much media we haven’t been allowed to do, so I’m getting to do it all.

Now That’s What I Call Characters brings together favourites from your previous shows. How did you decide who made the cut?

In all honestly it was whatever was tourable - but then I had to cancel my tour because I got a big job he he whoops!

Are there any characters you love that audiences simply don’t seem to get?

No they are all great or I wouldn’t put them in my show…

You’ve gone from selling out Fringe shows to taking your characters on your first UK tour. Does performing them outside the Edinburgh bubble feel different?

Yes it is lovely! I love Edinburgh too, but it is nice to see random people from my life turn up to my shows. One ex boyfriend who ghosted me bought a NEW girlfriend. That was fun!

Lorna Rose Treen: Now That's What I Call Characters at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from the 17th to 23rd August. For tickets and more information visit: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/lorna-rose-treen-now-that-s-what-i-call-characters