Q&A with Anna Thomas: How to Juggle a Ferret

How To Juggle a Ferret is an incredible title, where did it come from?

I can’t say too much about the title without actually giving away parts of the show, but I would like to take this time to say that no actual ferrets will be getting juggled during the hour. In fact, there will be no juggling occurring at all throughout. This, here, is an invitation to NOT bring your ferrets to be juggled. I cannot express this enough: there will be no ferrets present during the show, and I will not be teaching you how to do circus tricks with ferrets (only because the Ferrets’ Workers Union has requested that I stop doing so).

Your childhood bedroom being turned into a rhubarb-growing laboratory feels both surreal and oddly moving. Did that instantly feel like comedy material when you saw it?

Oh, at the time, it was a blooming nightmare. I came home from gigging away to find my bedroom full of rhubarb plants, just pots and buckets everywhere. It felt like I was doing a trek through the jungle just to get to my bed each night. I was truly awaiting the day that I was going to be awoken by a three-toed sloth or something. To be fair, a sloth wouldn’t be the worst roommate to have, I imagine. Like, you wouldn’t have to share your bed with them or anything, they’d probably just sleep dangling from the curtain rail or in your wardrobe or something.

This is your debut Fringe hour after already winning major awards. Does Edinburgh feel exciting or nerve-racking?

A mixture of both. I’m a bit terrified, but I read somewhere that when you’re scared at the prospect of doing something, you should just think of the scared feelings and nervous physical signals as manifestations of excitement instead. This tip has really helped with stage stuff, although I do think that it threw my dentist a bit when I told him that I was “really looking forward” to having my root canal done.

The show explores feeling “stuck” while people around you seem to be moving forward. Do you think a lot of people in their thirties quietly feel that way now?

I can imagine that there are other people my age feeling a similar way. I have found my thirties to be a really strange age, where I’m noticing that the paths are splitting more than when I was younger. I don’t think it’s a new thing, comparing your life to that of your peers, but social media has done a wonderful job at giving us a catalogue of our peers’ achievements that we can easily hold our own lives against. But, yeah, I can’t imagine I’m not the only one who’s felt a bit stuck in their time.

Your comedy has a very visual, storytelling quality. Did writing short films and radio shape the way you approach stand-up?

I believe so. I did stand-up before I got into writing scripted stuff, but I think writing for stand-up informed my script-writing, and then writing scripts has informed my stand-up. When writing scripts, I find, sometimes, that I accidentally reveal parts of my own life and feelings in the characters. When I’m writing, I don’t think too much about it in the moment, like I’m not going ‘ooo, that’s me!’ at the time, but it’s more of a retrospect thing. It makes sense though, as your lived experience is bound to bleed into your work, init? For example, I wrote a short film called ‘Lady Bigfoot’ about a sasquatch who secretly lives in a park in Wales, and watches humans from afar. She wishes she could be more part of the world (fall in love, socialise, have human connections, etc, etc.) but she can’t, as she’s stuck in the position she’s currently in. That narrative is not too far a jump from ‘How To Juggle a Ferret’. I guess, subconsciously, that that accidental honesty has bled into my stand-up stuff, which has led to me doing more storytelling and personal anecdotes. My stuff is still very daft and whatnot, by the way. Like, I’ve had to actively cut-down the amount of bellybutton jokes that are in there as it was becoming the bellybutton hour. But, yeah, I’d say that I’m a bit less afraid of people knowing who I am nowadays, I guess.

Anna Thomas: How to Juggle a Ferret at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from the 3rd – 30th August (not 18th). For more information visit: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/anna-thomas-how-to-juggle-a-ferret