Jake Mace
Mel McGlensey is performing two clown comedy shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 – and she’s promised us we’re in for a totally ‘normal’ experience. Binge Fringe reviewed her show Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT at Adelaide Fringe and then caught up with Mel again at Prague Fringe earlier this year. Her new show Mel McGlensey is Normal is also headed to Edinburgh, where she’s letting the audience take control. Mel joined us for a pixelated pint so we could talk more about both shows.
You can catch Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT from 30th July to August 10th at Below at Pleasance Courtyard from 23:05 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
You can then catch Mel McGlensey is Normal from August 12th to 24th (not the 18th) also at Below at Pleasance Courtyard from 23:05 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Mel – we last caught up with you when we saw you at Prague Fringe with your show Motorboat. Tell us about what you’ve been up to since then.
Mel: Since Prague Fringe ended I dove right into my new show, Mel McGlensey is NORMAL. I’ve been working on it for a little while, but post-Prague it was really go time. I’ve been in rehearsals and devising sessions with my director, Sharney Nougar and my collaborator Douglas Wilson all day every day as we try to get it ready for Edinburgh, where it’ll be making its world premiere. Other than that, I’m going on a small regional tour to Queensland, Australia, where I’ll be doing Motorboat as part of a line-up of other Melbourne-based comedians. Beside that, it’s pretty much all Edinburgh prep all the time! (it’s so soon GAH!).
Jake: For your new show Mel McGlensey is Normal, you’re putting the audience in charge – tell us what that means and about your process of developing this show.
Mel: I’m very used to making shows where I give the audience some amount of control; my first show, The Briefing, was for a large chunk of it just freeform Q&A with the audience, and my second show Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT has lots of very interactive elements and audience participation. But NORMAL is next level. It’s so at the discretion of the audience that it’s quite hard to prep for — you don’t want to spend too much time on any one bit because you’re not sure if you’ll get to perform that bit on any given night, if ever! It also means I have to be so prolific.
I’m making like 3 or 4 times as many bits as I would normally need to do for one show. It does make for a complicated and interesting (and at times, stressful!) creation process, but I know that it will be very exciting for me (and hopefully the audience!) when it comes time to perform it. My background in improv and clown means that I’m often at my best when I don’t know what comes next, so I really look forward to being surprised every night by what the audience picks.
Jake: Tell us about what the audience can expect coming into the show, and what they might not expect about the show.
Mel: The audience can expect a VERY normal show. Nothing weird. Nothing gross. Nothing sexual… are you buying this? Haha ok fine I admit it, this show might not be exactly what’s written on the tin. In a lot of ways, this show is me letting myself off the leash. It’s a late night show, it’s a lot less narrative than other shows I’ve done, it’s basically just me giving myself permission to do all of the loosest, wildest, stupidest bits. I think the audience can expect lots of interaction (you’ve been warned), lots of choice (they get to choose the bits I do) and lots of loose clown buffoonery. Other than that, their guess is as good as mine!
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Mel: I want them to first and foremost, have a good laugh. I want them to let their guard down, embrace something strange and different and maybe force them out of their comfort zone a little at the same time. There are larger themes and perhaps even political motivations behind the choices I’ve made in the work, but I leave it up the audience member to decide how deeply they want to engage with that, if at all.
Jake: With Edinburgh Fringe 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Mel: I’m so excited to get NORMAL up on her feet, it being her premiere and all. So many people told me not to premiere something brand new in Edinburgh, which is good advice that I appreciate but that I absolutely ignored. To me, that’s what the fringe is all about: trying something new and strange. I get that we’re maybe beyond that now, that the Edinburgh Fringe isn’t the plucky little festival it once was, but to me the spirit of the thing is still there, and that spirit says “go on, get up there and make an ass of yourself” (in a gruff scottish accent).
So yes, I’m excited to premiere Normal, of course I am, but I am also very very excited to do MOTORBOAT again. This will be her second Edinburgh, and I’m so thrilled to get to do this show again because I love doing it and because to me it is such an Edinburgh show. The bit that MOTORBOAT was based on was honed and gig’d at my very first Edinburgh, and the rest of the show was influenced by all the incredible clown I saw that first year. I’m absolutely bursting to bring it back and to do it at the Pleasance no less. It’s a show that feels like home to me, and when I’m doing it I’m at my happiest.
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
You: I have said before that MOTORBOAT would be a Shirely Temple… or a Dirty Shirley, depending on the night 😉 But what would NORMAL be…? Hmmm. I feel like she’d be a vanilla protein shake… with a healthy splash of absinthe in it. The hallucinogenic kind.
A reminder, you can catch Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT from 30th July to August 10th at Below at Pleasance Courtyard from 23:05 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
You can then catch Mel McGlensey is Normal from August 12th to 24th (not the 18th) also at Below at Pleasance Courtyard from 23:05 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
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