Nicki Watts is bringing her show Nicki’s Spoken Show to Lambeth Fringe this month.
“Nicki’s Spoken Show is a fun, fast paced, one woman show. I’ve been compared to Victoria Wood, Pam Ayres and Miranda on numerous occasions, maybe with good reason…come along and find out for yourself!”
Where: Garden Room, Bread & Roses Pub
When: 27 Sep, 3pm
Ticket link: https://lambethfringe.com/events/nickis-spoken-show
What inspired the creation of Nicki’s Spoken Show, and what three words would you use to describe yourself as a performer?
I’ve been putting on shows of entirely my own work for the last 3 years. The first few were written to feature some of my friends as well, but then I decided to challenge myself and create a solo show.
My show has evolved slightly as time has gone on and I’m happy with the format now. I have a genuine love of entertaining and a greater love for writing. I’ve been a writer for 24 years and I’ve still got a head completely full with ideas of new works to write.
Since performing at Edinburgh Fringe last month a whole new level of creativity has been unlocked within me and now I’m writing a greater range of poetic styles, which makes my show even more varied.
This particular show was mainly created to take to fringe festivals all around the country, with the ultimate goal being Edinburgh.
Three words I would use to describe myself as a performer are: vibrant, outrageous and chaotic.
It has always been said that I know how to control an audience and that I can quickly put them at ease.
Why should audiences come along to the show, and what might they expect?
Audiences should come to my show because it truly is unique. Everyone says that of their own work but my show is fun, fast paced, chaotic and absolutely hilarious.
People can expect to hear sonnets, haiku, tanka, limericks and monologues, with my trademark chat in between. I also love to do interactive quizzes – they are great fun and always go down well with the audience.
My show style is relaxed, informal and engaging. You never know what is going to happen from one minute to the next.
I am highly unpredictable, even to myself and will quite often go off on tangents, freestyling, as it were, and start having random chats with the audience or talk about things quite off topic in between performing my poetry and monologues.
Sometimes I throw a drinking game into the mix just for a bit of fun, if that’s something that the audience are interested in. I’m good at reading the room so I always have a good instinct of whether to introduce the idea or not.
My show may be many things but boring it is not. If you think poetry and spoken word is boring you clearly haven’t seen my show! I write on a very wide range of subjects and my work goes from fun and light-hearted to thought provoking and emotive and all levels in between.
I enjoy having a good moan about some of the many things which annoy me (grumpy old woman in training), I do a fine love sonnet but most of all I get the biggest high out of making people laugh.
No-one ever leaves my show more miserable than when they arrived!
Do you find fringe festivals inspiring?
I do when they are done in the right spirit and have the right ethos. I have performed at 8 different fringe festivals in the last 2 years and you can really tell which are motivated purely by the arts and which are not.
I find fringe festivals exciting as it gives performing artists the opportunity to showcase their work and gives them much needed exposure. It’s a real celebration of art and culture, which, to me, is such an important part of life.
I also love the community spirit which is present amongst fringe performers. Everyone looks out for each other and supports each other.
I like the way that different venues open themselves up for fringe festivals, giving performers a chance to perform in places they might not have ordinarily got the opportunity to.
Done properly, fringe festivals are a wonderful thing to be a part of.
What’s next for the show?
I will continue to take the show on tour. There are a few more fringe festivals I am interested in so I will be pursuing them next year. I also have a list of venues I’d love to perform in so I will be working towards taking the show to a few of them.
As well as my solo show, I have other shows I do so I’ll keep moving forward with those too. My next big fringe goal is to take my soap opera, Kaleidoscope Street, to Dublin Fringe with my group, The Radio Players.