Anya Anastasia's new cabaret show ‘The Executioners’ will be on at the Gilded Balloon – Wine Bar at 8pm daily during August.

  • What is your Fringe show about?

This is social and political satire at its most musically sublime.

We take to the stage gleefully attacking and dismembering perils of the modern world, collectively armed with all manner of artillery from swords to sitars, a degree in classical piano, soaring and searing vocals, Kung Fu, and unlikely harmonies. Our central character mirrors the current crop of keyboard slacktivists projecting their heroic social media image into cyberspace.

Like the tree falling in the forest, what is the point of saving the world if no one shares your status?

  • How many times/many years have you appeared at the Fringe?

2016 with Torte e Mort: Songs of Cake and Death (my Marie Antoinette inspired original cabaret) 2017 with Rogue Romantic, at Assembly Checkpoint and this year with THE EXECUTIONERS.

  • What’s your most memorable moment from the Fringe?

I made an entire dress out of my remaining flyers in the final week of Fringe and within an hour of parading around the Royal Mile, a huge gust of wind ripped most of the flyers off the frame in one go leaving me tottering home across the cobble stones in my heels, freezing in not a lot more than a hoop skirt and inappropriate underwear. Giving up the last scraps of my dignity I continued ripping off and handing out the final flyers that protected my PG-rating.

  • What’s the worst thing about the Fringe?

The collective energy of several thousand artists adjusting their expectations after the first week.

  • If you were not a performer what would you be doing?

I’d be an evil mastermind categorically destroying everything that is great about the world starting with killing all kittens. Please support my performance career. Think of the kittens.

  • How do you prepare for a performance?

My co-star Gareth Chin and I sit and have coffee together mid afternoon. That’s when our pre-show ritual commences. We go through our notes and show adjustments (a show addressing contemporary affairs always continues to evolve through every season) It’s difficult because he sits outside in a cloud of cigarette smoke enjoying the cold and I sit inside preferably on top of a fire if there is one. We communicate via meaningful glances through the window.

The Humans! The whisky! The conversations…

  • What’s the most Scottish thing you’ve ever done?

Walked into a tiny bar on a fisherman’s wharf on the isle of Skye where they demanded I sing a song A Capella in exchange for my drink.

  • Favourite Scottish food/drink?

Last year I discovered Lediag from the Tobermory Distillery, and also fried Scallops and Chips from the shack near the Iona ferry. It took three buses a van and a ferry and some seriously terrifying narrow-road high-speed passenger-ing to find these treasures but they were worth every nauseating twist and turn…. Also there were sheep kicking back and relaxing on the beach. Who knew that sheep too, like to feel the sand between their hoof digits.

  • Sum up your show in three words

Satirical millennial neo-cabaret

Show summary

Award-winning musical-comedy maverick Anya Anastasia brandishes her razor-sharp satirical wit, gleefully attacking and dismembering perils of the modern world. Alongside musical partner-in-crime, Gareth Chin, she stalks the 21st-century landscape launching thrilling attacks on ecological screwups, techno obsessives and self-congratulatory slacktivist keyboard warriors. Unleash the fury. 

Anya Anastasia's new cabaret show ‘The Executioners’ will be on at the Gilded Balloon – Wine Bar at 8pm daily during August. For tickets, please visit www.edfringe.com

You can follow Anya Anastasia on Twitter at @anyaanastasiaa and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/anyaanastasiaartist