4 days ago
Sharon Wanjohi
Spend any time on Instagram or TikTok and, if the algorithm gets a whiff of your insecurities, you'll soon be flooded with advice on how to enhance your 'wellness'.
'Wake up at 4am, chug seven bottles of water, go for a run for three hours, buy this pill and you'll feel like a genius,' says Sharon Wanjohi, whose debut Edinburgh Festival Fringe hour, In the House, sets out to poke fun at the quick-fix nonsense we're fed.
At a time when many people she knows are working two jobs to make ends meet, this lifestyle advice feels to her like 'putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. I want to satirise that a bit and come up with my own 'solutions' that are not helpful at all.'
As a person on the cusp of Gen Z, she's also baffled that other 27-year-olds seem to be settling down. 'Buying houses? How? In this economy? Especially if you're single,' she says, exasperated. 'We're being fed the idea that we should introduce children into the world. How do you gently slide into the next stage of life?'
Having read plenty of self-help books, she will be playing with the form and breaking the hour down into chapters on how you too can achieve a better life. But don't expect any serious assistance: she's planning to share silly affirmations and rather bad advice.
When she was a kid, Wanjohi, who grew up on the Essex/London border, watched loads of television comedy, from Little Miss Jocelyn to Mitchell and Webb, thanks to her parents' love of the genre. Sometimes they would enjoy it together; others she would be peeping from the stairs while they watched and she was supposed to be in bed. 'I remember at a young age, feeling, 'Yeah, I really want to make people feel like that.''
So, as soon as she started studying English at the University of Southampton, she joined the comedy society, 'where all the virgins went. I fell in love with it immediately,' she says. 'I was always loosely involved in drama at school and in my extracurricular activities, but the first time I did comedy I was thinking, 'This is exactly what I've been looking for. This is exactly the feeling I want.' The comedy bug bit me and I never stopped.'
A few years later she was doing stand-up at the Boat Show comedy club in London, and a television producer in the audience who liked her shtick invited her to try out writing for comedy shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Guessable. She did so well that she now writes full-time for television, including for The Jonathan Ross Show and Late Night Lycett.
She is also writing a play about Gen Z's attitude towards alcohol and drinking. 'I've read quite a few articles recently about how this age group isn't drinking, having sex or going out, and then in the same articles they'll say things about MDMA and ketamine use being on the rise, and they are, and that's a recession indicator, for sure. I want to look at those attitudes, and why no one's getting drunk in a field any more.'
But, while she's really enjoying the writing, there's something about live comedy that she particularly loves. 'What happens in the room stays in the room; you can put stuff online but there's something about the energy of live comedy and being all together at one time,' she says. 'Sharing laughter is so magical. I want to keep doing that.'Bunker Two at Pleasance Courtyard, Aug 1-24 (not 12), 6.55pm, £14; previews Jul 30-31; two-for-one Aug 4 and 5
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