Siân Docksey is a British-Belgian comedian, writer, and podcaster. As well as her stand-up, she also co-hosts beloved leftfield comedy showcase, the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society. We spoke to Siân about her full-length debut Fringe show ‘Pole Yourself Together’ which revolves (sorry) around pole dancing, her podcast on the same subject, and old family friends judging her life choices.
Can you tell us about ‘Pole Yourself Together!’?
It’s a pole dancing comedy show about dread! Pole dancing is genuinely how I’ve improved my mental health a lot, and the rest of my life in general, so – that’s what I wanted to talk about on stage for an hour. I’d also been declaring my pole classes as a business expense so my accountant told me I had to put pole dance in my comedy stuff to keep it legit. So, that’s where the show came from. He needs a writing credit, probably.
What drew you to pole dancing, and how do you go about structuring a comedy show around it?
Honestly I learned pole dancing pretty much by accident. I was a stripper in London while I was between day jobs where I picked up the basics. Then during the pandemic I got stranded in my parents’ basement for nearly a year and I practiced pole dancing to stop myself going mad. There’s a lot of overlap between how you structure a stand-up routine and how you choreograph a pole dancing routine, and there’s lots of ways that they’re totally different and maybe incompatible. I remember when Fern Brady used to open her stand-up sets with the line, “I know what you’re thinking: why is the stripper talking?” and I thought that was so interesting – the idea that you can be a TALKER or you can be a DANCER, but not both. It’s why I’m very insistent that I use a hand-held microphone in the show, not like a hidden radio mic. I’m there as an old-school stand-up comic (in a way), who also happens to be dangling off a pole. I could write you a PhD about how the worlds of stand-up and pole dancing are similar because I’ve spent nearly two years obsessively thinking about it. And also, truthfully, a huge amount of my time is actually spent emailing venues about their ceiling to see if I can get the pole in.
Not only have you built a show around pole dancing, but you’ve also it as the basis for a podcast. Can you tell us about ‘Pole the Other One?’
Yeah! I love doing the polepod! In a way it felt insane to take the very visual medium of pole dancing, and try to make that into a podcast – it’d be like doing a show about heavy metal music and setting it in a library. But I’ve been fascinated by pole dancers and all the different walks of life they appear from. I’ve met the most diverse, interesting and (in a way) unlikely people in pole dancing classes, both as instructors and students – from political activists to therapists to super busy mums, creatives, people with neuroscience PhD’s, sex workers, business witches, everyone. If I had to pick one area that’s surprised me the most, it’s how many pole dancers have very serious health issues and/or invisible physical and mental disabilities. In one of the earliest episodes of the podcast (which I was recording from my parents’ basement over Zoom) I talked to a friend with multiple sclerosis and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. They basically had written off movement from their life completely as they’re often in so much physical pain, and it’s pole dancing that’s re-introduced that into their daily life. You’d honestly never guess that from watching this person pole dance because they move so beautifully and fluidly. We’re now in a new series of the podcast where I’ve brought in my friend Lulu Popplewell as a co-host – she’s a fantastic stand-up comedian who knew nothing about pole dancing before the show and is essentially there for the craic. This is great because it brings a complete newbie perspective to the show, and – like everything, I think – it’s just more fun to do things with your pals.
Last year you directed one of the most acclaimed shows of the Fringe, Sam Nicoresti’s ‘Cancel Anti Wokeflake Snow Culture’. What did directing the show involve?
It is a fascinating and ongoing process. Sam has such a distinctive writing style and visual, surreal way of making shows. Part of my role has been thinking about how we can capture all that brilliant and unique weirdness, and shape it into a show that absolutely anyone can understand. Sam is always going to have the creative lead and ultimately decide what goes in and what stays out. Where I come in is looking at it from an outside perspective and thinking, “Okay – this is Sam’s world. What are the steps we can take to let an audience member in?” I’m really excited about whatever they decide to do next with it. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever worked on.
This is your debut full-length show Fringe show. What are your hopes and expectations for August?
I would like to have a great show, and have fun. I hope to not fall off the stick and die. I expect to be quite tired.
What for you are the best and worst things about the Fringe?
There’s too much to say about this in one paragraph, really. I hope that enough people care enough about how brilliant the Fringe is to protect the great things about it. The cost is bad. The people and the art are good. Well, some of the art is terrible, but that’s also important.
Have you had any really memorable Fringe experiences, good or bad, either as performer or as an audience member?
I did a 45 minute solo show in 2017 about turning myself into a lemon. I was in a yellow morph suit in a basement venue doing this very knockabout surreal stand-up show – my aim with that Fringe was to be a better comedian by the end of Edinburgh than I was at the beginning so, I was having fun and playing around. One day some old family friends turned up, sat in the very front row and the show went so badly it ran for about 28 minutes before I just gave up. They took me for tea afterwards and I realised I’d forgotten to bring a change of clothes, so I sat there in my yellow morph suit while they told me which kid was off to do their law degree, etc. Then they asked me what I was generally up to and looked at me ashen-faced when I replied, “Oh, mostly this.”
Beside ‘Pole Yourself Together!’, can we expect to see you performing elsewhere during August?
You can catch me co-hosting Alternative Comedy Memorial Society on Sundays – Wednesdays at Monkey Barrel One, from about midnight – but not on all the nights! ACMS has a great rolling cast of different co-hosts. We’re figuring out how I can co-host as many shows as possible while being realistic that I’m also doing an hour of pole dancing every day so I have to sleep, or I will physically dissolve.
Are there any other acts at the Fringe that you would recommend audiences see?
Jodie Mitchell’s show is the one I’m most excited about, they’re the stand-up comic I see most often and feel furious while thinking, “God that’s so funny, I wish I’d written that”. Their drag is amazing and I’m so stoked to see these things come together. I’m also highly biased because he’s directing ‘Pole Yourself Together!’ but Alexander Bennett’s new show ‘I Can’t Stand The Man, Myself’ is a great stand-up hour about self-loathing. Alexander is a brilliant comic and isn’t scared to get into very dark, weird, and messy stuff, which has been essential for helping me figure out my show. And I’m still highly biased here because they’re all pals but also definitely check out: Lulu Popplewell, Mary O’Connell, Matty Hutson. Oh! and Lorna Rose Treen. Lorna makes me happy and excited about the future of weird comedy.
‘Pole Yourself Together!‘ runs from Wed 2 to Mon 28 Aug 2023 (except Wed 9, Mon 14 to Tue 15, & Mon 21 to Tue 22) at Pleasance Dome – 10Dome at 19:10