Shay Mace
What’s in a name? Blue Fire Theatre Company reckon plenty, and especially one name (and its derivations)… Mary. They’ve put together a woman-led historical solo show, Bloody Mary(s), that explores Marys across the millennia, from Biblical times to the present day, across cultures and continents, Marys, Mariams and Marias have featured in news reports, gossip columns, storybooks and holy tracts. We caught up with the show’s performer, Lottie Walker, to find out about how that process has been, and what the audience can expect as the show arrives at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month.
You can catch Bloody Mary(s) at multiple times and venues throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on August 7th – 30th (not the 16th, or 23rd – 26th). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi team! Bloody Mary(s) seeks to introduce to an abundance of Marys, Marias, Mariams, and others of the name, who have made their mark on the world, tell us about what’s inspired the creation of the show.
Lottie: Hello! The initial seed of an idea for this show was planted in a beer garden in 2023. We’d been trying to identify the subject for our next show and were bemoaning the fact that there are so many women of history with wonderful stories but so little time to tell them when – as an aside – someone remarked how there was a disproportionate number of Marys on our shortlist (which was in actual fact a very long list).
Another bright spark then had a Eureka moment and said “that’s it! we can do 60 Marys in 60 minutes!”. From such acorns come many headaches… the show has been shelved several times because getting the concept right was just proving too difficult but we kept coming back to it, because we really liked the idea. There has to be a reason the name has been the most popular for 500 years and the women we’ve discovered (and we’ve only just scratched the surface) are a wonderfully broad range. They are queens, cooks, pirates and politicians and everything in between. How could we not want to tell such rich stories? Especially the ones that are rarely told today.
Shay: At the end of the show we’re invited to decide which of the Marys we’d choose to invite to a dinner party – if each of you had to choose a Mary, who would it be and why?
Loving this question – we’ve really had to think (we’ve all got a soft spot for most of them). Anyway – here are our favourites:
- J.J. Leppink – Author – Mary Read for stories of piracy on the high seas and how to make men quake in their boots.
- Lottie Walker – Performer – Mary Queen of Scots. She’s a mass of contradictions and I think has been both misunderstood and misrepresented over such a long time that I’d love to get to know the real person behind the myth.
- Jason Price – Director – Mary Frith (Moll Cutpurse) I’d like to hear about her capers, share a drink and a pipe and learn more about pimping …
- James Hall – Music Supervisor – Marie Lloyd. I’d love to listen to her stories and hear what her singing voice was really like.
- Zoe Harvey-Lee – Costume Designer – Mary Jackson. Her journey as a black woman working at NASA in 1960s America is one to truly inspire.
- Fiona Auty – Designer – Mary Pickford. I want to get her style and fashion tips and talk about her legacy of films, charity work – and try the cocktail named after her!
Shay: How has the creative process been of putting the show together? Give us an idea of the journey you’ve been on with it so far.
Lottie: It’s been hard and it took a remarkably long time to get to the actual format it now takes. I was fortunate to be Artist in Residence at OSO in Barnes and the time and space that afforded us allowed us to put the bare bones together but we were trying a little too hard to run a narrative through the show and try as we might we just couldn’t make it work. We actually took two of the Marys out of this piece and J.J. wrote a play about them instead (there’s an audio version of Mothers of Monsters on our podcast). When we showcased this piece we told the audience how we’d arrived at it.
A friend in the audience said “I’d like to see a Powerpoint presentation” so we went back to the drawing board and decided to lean into the faux-academic/trivia aspects of the show. After all, everyone loves a pub quiz, don’t they?! So, our “Maryologist” now takes the audience on a journey through time to meet wonderful women and invite them to a dinner party. There’s also an unsurprisingly themed menu and playlist, too. It’s been a challenge but fun in getting the concept right but our team is both creative and adaptable – it’s taken a while, but we think we’re there now! Spoiler alert: There’s no Powerpoint presentation!
Shay: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Lottie: The first thing they’ll see is a suitcase, which gives a clue that we’ll be travelling somewhere and then they’ll see me! Any stragglers will have the pleasure of being shown to their seats by your’s truly (I’m doubling up as performer and steward). We’re hoping that my timeless but historically-influenced costume (please admire the shoes!) will be a big clue as to the style of the show. It’s all a bit Vivienne Westwood meets Lady Bracknell… Of course, there’ll be the playlist to listen to, whilst getting comfortable. It’s been such fun making that; it is amazing how many songs are about Marys, Maries, Miriams and Marions and we’re hoping the audience will help us add to this as we go through the run.
Shay: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Lottie: Well they’ll definitely have some kind of souvenir to take away. With nearly 4,000 shows at the Fringe we’re grateful that people choose to see us so we like to give them a little reward. They’ll also have loads of ammunition for the pub quiz and, hopefully a photo of the dinner party they have created. That will be fun – I’m anticipating that some audiences will be more harsh than others, so we could have anything from one to 27 guests invited! On a more serious note I hope they’ll look at some of these women from a new perspective.
As we say in the play “could it be that there is hitherto-unappreciated nuance in these women?”. The bad ones weren’t necessarily all bad and the good ones surely couldn’t have been THAT perfect. In this internet age it’s so easy to make snap judgements about people; our job here is to point out that things aren’t always what they seem and sometimes it’s worth a look at the bigger picture before making those judgements. Oh yes, they’ll probably be humming a tune they may never have heard before on the way out, too…
Shay: What journey has the show been on to find itself at EdFringe 2026?
Lottie: It was always the plan to bring this show to EdFringe and we’re so pleased that this is where it will debut. Artistically the journey has taken us from the original idea, via a fictional autobiographical play and a gothic play for both stage and audio via a literal lecture to the piece we have today. We’ve also got several podcast episodes about Marys and have been running a “Monday Mary” spot on all our socials. Geographically it’s gone from a bar in London to a bar in Edinburgh then back to London for development before being put to bed for a few months.
It was then resurrected in London for further development and we’ve been rehearsing in Sussex, with the set being designed and made in Wiltshire. There have been times when I’ve wished that time travel is real in order to make the logistics a bit easier. Anyway, we’ve been fortunate to have tried out a couple of excerpts from the show at a London showcase (shout out to Lockdown Projections and The Divine for having us) and our previews were at the best venue in the world for this show: The National Archives at Kew. Where better to talk about all these amazing women than the place where it’s possible to find out even more about so many of them?!
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Lottie: This is always an exciting time when we start to look to see what everyone else is doing and book to see shows (there are some crackers this year). This is also the time that companies start to contact each other and the support network begins to grow. The Fringe is fun, but it’s tough, so a big part of the experience is supporting other people and being held up by the goodwill of others.
I’m pleased to report that the “spirit of the Fringe” is alive and well in 2026. There’s always the typical Edinburgh-specific stuff that we look forward to, too – like a Scottish Plain loaf, saying hello to Greyfriars Bobby and escaping to the Botanical Gardens. But most of all the excitement is about actually getting the show on its feet properly and introducing the Fringe audience to all our wonderful Mary. The show’s been a long time in the making so it’ll be wonderful to finally see it up and running. Can’t wait to see who our most popular Mary is across all Fringe performances…
Shay: 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?
Lottie: Well… the show is actually named after a cocktail and both a Bloody Mary and Mary Pickford cocktail are mentioned in the show but we won’t have either of those, it would be too predictable! So we’re going with a Negroni – it’s sweet with a bitter aftertaste so perfectly illustrates the meanings of the name “Mary” – beloved and bitterness all in one glass! Cheers!
A reminder, you can catch Bloody Mary(s) at multiple times and venues throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on August 7th – 30th (not the 16th, or 23rd – 26th). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Kevin Quantum
