Lorna Rose Treen is a character comedian, writer, and improviser who is bringing her debut solo show ‘Skin Pigeon’ to the Fringe. She’s previously performed in Edinburgh as a member of The Improverts, and has recently been the recipient of two Funny Women awards and a Chortle award. We spoke to Lorna about ‘Skin Pigeon’, the secret to writing a memorable character, and how it feels to the name on the lips on a massive percentage of the acts we’ve interviewed this year.
Can you tell us about ‘Skin Pigeon’?
‘Skin Pigeon’ is my debut solo comedy show at the Fringe. It’s a character comedy show. I play – I counted them today – 12 different characters. It’s really stupid. It doesn’t mean anything, and it’s all really silly. Some of the characters are really cartoony and like something straight out of The Simpsons, whereas other characters a bit more realised and based on me and people I know that had gone their own individual journeys and stuff, so they have their own stories. It’s a real mixture of stuff, I play one object in it as well.
What’s the secret to writing a good character? Because so many shows are full of ‘random’ or ‘nonsensical characters’, but I’m sure their creation isn’t isn’t a random process.
Oh my gosh, I wish I knew the secret. I started doing this show because I just desperately wanted to learn how to write comedy. It’s been really interesting learning how to write character comedy throughout it. I was really keen for each character to speak in a different way and change the space differently. So my approach to them is that I kind of did the same thing until it stopped working and then I changed it. I’m quite ruthless with with how I do it. Quite often I think the best way to do it is to improvise and so I record myself on my phone, and I’ll improvise, maybe to some music or I’ll just speak with a voice for a bit and then I’ll watch it back. There’ll be about half an hour or an hour worth of footage. I just sit and watch it through and I just jot down anything that was good or could be something and then improve on that. You know, I’m quite un-precious with my material and I move very quickly and just discard and discard. I’ve had some some characters, maybe 10 characters, I’ve binned while working this show. One particular character, I tried to put her in six different occupations to see if she’d work and then eventually I was just like, ‘No, she’s so unlovable, I hate her!’
Once you’ve got to a point with a character that you know there’s something there, do you workshop them on on stage or do you try and get them fully realised before you show them to anyone else?
When I first started out, I was really precious and so scared, so I was like, ‘This needs to be really good before I put it in front of people’. Whereas now I really like finding something like an idea, or like a voice, and it’s like a fun game. I need to get this in front of an audience as soon as possible. I had one character with who I stole the voice from Alison Steadman, and I gave her really long arms. And she was really fun to play and I kept putting her in like somebody’s birthday party and she was basically doing a speech for her friend but it was all about her. It’s quite like anti-comedy. She was quite dour. I’d written it and I was really happy with it and then I put her in one of my works-in-progress, and I hadn’t really gigged her. I was doing it, and it was funny, but I was like, ‘This is not for live at all.’ It just killed the energy, so I was like, ‘Maybe this is better for tele or something’. If you don’t put it in front of an audience sooner rather than later you do risk that lack of relationship with an audience, because my characters don’t really exist without an audience watching them and how they relate to them.
Are there some characters that you would keep specifically for your online video sketches and certain ones that you would only do live?
I don’t do any of my live characters online. You know some stand-ups have a trend of putting up, ‘Stand-up destroys heckler!’ That kind of thing. I don’t. I’m quite precious about where my content is and what platform it’s on. For instance, my Brownie, Girl Guide character, her costume was developed for the stage. So online, it just doesn’t have the same context. Whereas when I do online videos – which I really love doing, I find them really rewarding. I play a sort of parody of a TikToker, and I try and make it so it looks like it could be a real TikTok. It could be a real person because I want it to feel familiar before I take them somewhere. weirder. I I did a bit of the Brownie on TikTok and it did quite well because it’s nostalgic, but I think it just hits completely differently. I do Sally Rooney in my show. She she’s the only character I discovered on TikTok first. I did a parody of somebody in a Sally Rooney book, and even that has been completely remodelled for the stage. I don’t play a Sally Rooney character, I play Sally Rooney reading a book that I’ve written. It was interesting to work that way, the opposite way. Online, sometimes I’ll do stories as myself or nostalgic things – basically talk about the Noughties, which I don’t do on stage. I don’t play myself on stage. So that’s a real difference.
Your press for the show states that since you could dress yourself you’ve pretended to be other people. At what age did you start coming up with your own characters, and can you remember your first creation?
Oh my gosh. I remember really early on saying something stupid once around my family. Accidentally, I think I misspoke. I’m dyslexic, so I do misspeak quite a lot. But I remember misspeaking, and saying something really dumb. And then my family laughing at me and me feeling like, ‘Oh, this feels nice!’ Quite often I play really stupid. I remember telling my family, accidentally, that I didn’t think cows had ears or something when I was about 10. And I’m sure I didn’t mean to say ears, but I just went with it. I definitely played this dumbed-down version of myself to make my family laugh, but character-wise, I would just steal other people’s, but serious ones. And then the way that I do it would obviously be so ridiculous and stupid because I couldn’t act. I was obsessed with Robin Williams and I used to print off the full Disney scripts off the internet of Aladdin, or Jungle Book, or Alice in Wonderland, and I’d make my like three friends I had at the time – this is when I about nine or 10 – I’d make all my friends learn their lines and then we’d perform it. I’ve actually got like hours worth of footage of that! One of my first characters I used to play with was just completely ripped from Mean Girls as well. Obviously I didn’t what Mean Girls was about but I’d play that kind of classic like, [adopts Valley Girl vocal fry] ‘Oh my god yeah, let’s go to the mall and just be really irritating!’
So your first creation was actually a version of yourself that you knew was getting laughs from people?
I think so, yeah. I’ve always been happy with being seen as an idiot.
Over the last year or so you’ve you’ve won awards from Funny Women and Chortle, and we’ve been doing a lot of Q&A’s and interviews in the run up to this Fringe, and your show keeps coming up time and time again from various comedians giving their recommendations. How does it feel to be so well-regarded among your peers? And does that add any pressure?
It’s really lovely. It feels really exciting. I’m so excited about our generation of newcomers this year. Everyone’s so creative and doing such different things. There’s so much pressure with taking a full show to Edinburgh practically. That’s kind of the thing that I feel causes the most pressure. The awards and stuff are like an extra really exciting thing that of course is really important. But there’s so much practical pressure anyway. When I went Funny Women it fully changed my life overnight. It was amazing. So many opportunities have come from it. But I I remember feeling like I can’t fly under the radar now. I felt like there’s now a spotlight on me. Also, when you first start out you could surprise people and be like, ‘Oh, jokes! Yes, I’m quite good!’ Yesterday before I went on stage, someone described me with my accolades, and I was like, ‘Why did you do that?’ I was doing new material as well. The audience was going to expect such a brilliant thing from me. But yeah, I’m I trained with clowns so lot of my fun is in failing anyways. It adds an extra stupidity on top of it which is quite fun. And I like high stakes. That’s also fun.
You’ve performed at the Fringe before with The Improverts. What for you are the best and the worst things about the Fringe?
The best thing is the different audiences. You get access to make so many different people. All of my comedy experience, my foundations are from the Fringe. And I really love that. It’s like a creative hub. Everyone’s coming from everywhere and doing all sorts of different things. You could see such incredible stuff. I remember when I was at uni my world was just opened. I remember seeing Trygve Wakenshaw. And Helen Duff, and Spencer Jones, Lucy Pearman, and Lazy Susan and just being like, ‘Wow!’ I didn’t know that you could be this anarchic. I didn’t know that you could be this funny, especially with women. It was just incredible to be like, ‘Oh, women can be outstanding! This is amazing!’ That’s really, really inspiring. That’s probably the best thing.
The worst thing – when I’ve been before, the worst thing was definitely the emotional roller coaster of it. And energy levels, you know? Because I was a student, I’d go out and drink and then have to do a show the next day so it’s basically just learning how to self manage. And because I went to uni there I was really used to the city so it was it was kind of like a gradual ride into Fringe rather than being suddenly in this brand new city. It was my city. I was living in my flat, so that was alright. I suppose the worst thing now is, it’s expensive. It’s just unaffordable.
Besides ‘Skin Pigeon’, can we expect to see you performing elsewhere during August?
Yeah, I’m gonna do Jazz Emu’s Pleasure Garden, which is just a phenomenal show. You’ve come and you do your set, but with a full band. I did it in London, and… Oh, wow, it’s incredible! You feel like a superstar because you’ve got a whole band behind you, but you’re doing such stupid stuff. So that’s really fun. I’m really excited about doing that, and then I’m also going to be doing Cabaret Impedimenta with John-Luke Roberts. I’m really excited about that, and then I’m also going back to my old haunt at Bedlam Theatre to run a Midlands-based comedy night, because I’m determined for this year to be the year of the Midlanders. don’t know what it’s gonna look like. Maybe like a physical fight. I’m not sure. But we will decide which which area of the Midlands is the best.It is the West Midlands.
And finally, are there any other acts at the Fringe that you would recommend that audiences go and see this year?
Yeah, massively. Oh my gosh. That’s another best thing [about the Fringe] is that you get to see everyone’s incredible shows. Flat & the Curves I’m really excited about. Kathy Maniura. Lachlan Werner. Frankie [Thompson] and Liv [Ello] are bringing the Body Show, which is a theatre show. That’s gonna be really, really cool. I’m really excited for Priya Hall’s show as well at Monkey Barrel, I think that’s going to be really really good.
‘Skin Pigeon’ runs from Wed 2 to Sun 27 Aug 2023 (except Mon 14) at Pleasance Courtyard – The Attic at 16:35