“Solastalgia: noun (sol-a-stal-gi-a) the emotional, physical or existential distress caused by environmental change to your home. A portmanteau of the words solace and nostalgia.
A new storytelling climate comedy lecture about saving ourselves in time and protecting what you love by Dr Matt Winning. Host of Net Zero: A Very British Problem (BBC Radio 4).”
Where: Studio Five at Assembly, George Square Studios
When: 30 Jul-24 Aug
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/matt-winning-solastalgia
Matt explains what the word Solastalgia actually means, and what he really looks forward to in Edinburgh.
Without saying too much, what can audiences expect from your show?
First, I can tell you what not to expect. There isn’t going to be a live pig. I can exclusively confirm that here and now to your lovely readers. No live pig. Nada.
There’s not a chance that
if you come to my show that you’ll see or touch a live pig for an hour. That is a rumour that was getting put round, I’m not sure by who, but it is definitely not simply “an expensive and glorified petting zoo”.
So get that idea out your heads. It’s actually a show about how we must end the fossil fuel industry using a story about the best and worst day of my life. It spans several centuries. And it’s pretty funny if I may say so myself.
Where did you get the idea to create this show and bring it to Edinburgh?
Well, I wanted to make my first new show since 2019. And I wanted to make something that was different to my previous shows and get me out my comfort zone whilst still making a show about climate change.
I’ve limited myself to talking about only a couple of things in this new show. My day job is as a lecturer on climate topics, so it is stuff I am thinking about all
the time.
As the topic changes and evolves over the years this tends to inform my shows
and what they are about – and I’m tried of us skirting around the issue, so this one is therefore about how do we stop financing fossil fuels.
How did you get your start in comedy? Do you find Fringe festivals inspiring?
I started in comedy around 2009 in Glasgow and gigged around Scotland a lot. And I was in the finals of the Chortle Student Comedy Awards and the BBC New Comedy Awards quite
early in my career.
And I did Fringe shows with Richard Gadd for a number of years at the Fringe when we both started out and learning who to do it. I find the festivals incredibly
inspiring and wonderful to be part of.
What are you looking forward to the most at Edinburgh?
Bed.
Where can we see your work after Fringe?
I’m at the New Scientist Live festival not long after the Fringe. And then hopefully some shows around the country.