I love a show that’s a bit harder to define, one that doesn’t quite fall into any of the kind of categories you’d find in something like, oh, I dunno… the Edinburgh Fringe programme.

Georgie Wedge’s ‘Per-Verse’, which heads to Riverside Studios this week, is rather like that, a one-woman blend of stand-up, poetry, storytelling and physical comedy. 

I’m very interested in the show – which focuses on the vagaries of dating life – but also in the creator herself, and the path she’s taken to a performing career. 

I spoke to Georgie ahead of her opening night. 

CM: Can you start by telling us about what to expect from the show in terms of premise and style?
GW: ‘Per-Verse’ is a window into modern, city dating told through the stages of a date night. As I move through the date’s locations, I’m hit by flashbacks of previous escapades – which come in the form of poetry pieces.

The show is a blend of spoken word, stand-up, storytelling and physical comedy, so a real cocktail of genres. Style wise, it’s tongue-and-cheek but lyrical and, dare I say, quite sexy?

CM: And now can you tell us about the content of the show? What subjects and themes do you address? 
GW: I wanted to capture how dating can feel a bit like an assault on the senses, especially when you’re originally meeting on apps, one step removed from reality.

Each stage of the date and its accompanying flashback poem links to one of the five senses. There are also voice-overs, song snippets and soundscapes to lean into the idea dating can be a performative act – with ourselves, but also to those that have stakes in it around us, like our friends or even just the people observing you at the pub.

Some of the subjects include snogging abilities and sexual health panic, as well as percolating thoughts on masculinity and femininity.

CM: Is any of it inspired by your own experiences? 
GW: All of it! To be honest, I didn’t set out to specifically make a dating themed show, it just naturally developed that way when all my silly anecdotes were from my own dates.

I’m not playing a character in the show, it is fully myself and even the small details – like things I notice in my date’s flat – are things I’ve observed first hand.

CM: What was the inspiration for the show? What made you want to create a whole show about this? 
GW: The show evolved from stand-alone poetry pieces about my real-life dating stories which I had been performing at mainly spoken word events and mixed-bill nights.

The stories had been random jottings in my phone notes or voice notes to friends, so I thought it would be funny to make them into poems. They went down well at the events and I was gaining more confidence to perform them more theatrically, with physical comedy.

I’d been wanting to find a way back into theatre and acting again, and I hadn’t seen anything too similar, so I thought I’d give it a go and see how it landed!

CM: Can you tell us a bit about how you put the show together? What was the creative process? 
GW: When I had the idea to combine my poems into a show, I was a bit stuck on how to go about it or if it would translate into a wider story, rather than a collection of anecdotes.

When I told my friend, Ilya Wray, about the idea, he got the vision and was enthusiastic about how it could work, so came on board to direct and produce. He really helped develop the overarching plot of the piece – boiling it down into the simple, yet effective “live” first date structure.

Because the poetry pieces had come more naturally to me, I wrote a couple of others and we worked out how we could link them all together. It was a lot of bouncing ideas back and forth and throwing things at the wall.

Ilya having experience in areas I didn’t – like clowning, for example – really helped shape the tone of it. It also helped that I continued dating and so there was a continual stream of inspiration to draw from!

CM: The show debuted in Edinburgh last Fringe. What made you want to take a show to the Festival and how did that go? Would you perform there again? 
GW: When I was seventeen, I performed at the Fringe as part of a school production for a week and I fell in love. I grew up with aspirations of acting and the Fringe was one of those fabled, iconic milestones for performers, so I always had my sights set on it.

Doing the full Fringe was definitely a different experience, but an amazing one. It was a lot more emotionally and physically demanding than I expected, especially since I was in two shows a day for the month.

But there were some great moments in amongst the tough ones. I would perform there again for sure, but I’d do a lot of things differently.

CM: Can you tell us a bit about yourself now? How did you get to this point? Did you always want to perform? 
GW: I started performing from a young age and it was all I wanted to do. I acted throughout school and university, but I lost a lot of confidence with it along the way, so when I graduated, I decided to look at other options within entertainment.

After several years of being in TV and social media comms and marketing, I had the real urge to “make stuff”, and I started a part-time Masters in Writing For Performance as I made the switch into film production.

Writing then became a way to get back into performing again and now I’m here!

CM: What steps have you taken to build a career in the arts? 
GW: I’ve tried my hand at a few things within the arts over the years – from an international media company, to a start-up, to an independent production company.

I’ve always been eager to understand as much as possible that goes into the whole process and to meet people across lots of different roles to work out what my end goal was, as well as watching a lot of film, TV, theatre, comedy etc.

The Masters I graduated from last year was probably the biggest step in pushing myself back into the arts and I was lucky to meet people there I could collaborate with – like Ilya!

CM: What have been the highlights of your performing life thus far? 
GW: ‘Per-Verse’ has probably got to be the highlight. It was my first furore back into performing properly again and it really pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Finding the poetry and spoken word scene itself was eye-opening and I never thought I’d find myself headlining some of those nights, so to see work I’ve built from there being part of the Fringe and now to have a residency at Riverside is surreal.

Playing a member of the United Nations – an extra – in ‘Sharknado 5: Global Swarming’ is a very close second though.

CM: What aims and ambitions do you have for the future? 
GW: The dream would be having a career like Sharon Horgan or Michaela Coel, where I’d be writing, acting and producing comedy drama series. Though comedy drama is where I want to ultimately be, I’d like to challenge myself in different genres. I have a couple of horror ideas ticking over, for example.

CM: What’s coming up next for you after this? 
GW: Who knows! I think there’s definitely more life in ‘Per-Verse’ to come – it would be great to try it at some other arts festivals and maybe even take a new version of it back to Edinburgh next year.

I simultaneously want to start writing some other things – both for theatre and screen – and would love to do a course, particularly in drag and cabaret. So, watch this space I guess!

‘Per-Verse’ is on at Riverside Studios in London from 3-19 Apr. For more information and to book tickets, see the venue website here. 

LINKS: riversidestudios.co.uk | instagram.com/georgiewedge 

Photos: Ariel de la Garza