Kin is on at the Underbelly Cowgate – Belly Button, during August.

Performer Kate Alderton answers our questions. 

  • Tell us about your Fringe show

It’s a fierce and funny two-hander by Max Dickins (Man On The Moor, Trunk) about estranged sisters who are forced back together for a night while their dad is dying in the next room, trying to pin down a version of their past but discovering how memories shape-shift depending on who’s holding them. How families can winkle out the parts of us we hoped we’d grown out of, and hold the parts of us we thought we’d lost. How death brings life into hyper sharp focus. With fighting and dancing.

  • How does it feel to be playing the Fringe for the first time?

I can’t wait to be amidst the merry throng of so much creativity. I’m ridiculously excited to get stuck in and to get KIN in front of an audience. Abigail Burdess, who plays my sister, is very funny and a joy to work with. The whole company are old hands of the Fringe and every time we talk about Edinburgh they get those knowing smiles of people who’ve been on a rollercoaster you’ve never tried, and seen things you can’t imagine.. It’s properly Into The Unknown for me.

  • Why did you decide to perform at the Fringe?

Oliver Senton got me in for a rehearsed reading, we’d worked together as actors before but I’d always wanted to be directed by him. I just loved the script- it made me laugh out loud and cry, and it was brilliant to find these two cracking parts written for women in their 40’s. Max writes great dialogue, especially those kind of infuriating emotional gymnastics that can happen when you’re forced back into a family dynamic you thought you left behind.

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

I’d quite like to be a neuroscientist. Or a psychologist. Something to do with the brain or the mind. Does it have to be something I could actually really Do…? In real life I do all sorts when I’m not being a performer- I’m a producer with our theatre company The Mycelium who staged Cosmic Trigger last year, I run dream chambers, I write and I do a lot of mum-ing around with my kids, Fin and Rose.

  • How do you prepare for a performance?

In the show we have a dance, a fight and a shout so I’ll being doing a bit of yoga to stretch out my muscles and have a proper voice warm up. I like to sing My Analyst Told Me which is very fast and great for going up and down the scales. Then tea, loads of tea.

  • Best/worst advice you’ve been given ahead of your debut show?

I woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent message from a dream that I must take many, many vitamins to survive the mayhem- that sounds about right. The worst advice will probably reveal itself by mid August from one of these: yes, camping will be fine/ no, that doesn’t look like a long walk on the map/ yep, you’ll want that extremely early flight home after your final night.

  • Favourite thing about being in Edinburgh?

I think my favourite thing will be Gilmerton Cove. I’ve never been, but I’m an absolute sucker for an underground chamber.

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

On a trip to Scotland, my friend’s grandad took us on daily visits to stand on a bridge and watch a new motorway being built underneath us. I was 10 and I felt like I was being very, very Scottish at the time.

  • Favourite Scottish food/drink?

Has to be tattie scones. I genuinely like Irn-Bru, but I’m not going to say Irn-Bru because I bet everyone says Irn-Bru. Irn-Bru.

  • Sum up your show in three words

F**ked-up. Sisters. Re-unite.

Show summary

A dying father. Two estranged sisters reunite after 20 years. One night to bury the hatchet. In an airless room over a single night, they talk it out. When the only thing they have left in common disappears, is their relationship worth saving? 

Kin is on at the Underbelly Cowgate – Belly Button, during August. For tickets, please visit www.edfringe.com