Summer In The Studio: An Interview with Victoria Melody from Head Set

Tue 28 Jun 2022

We will be welcoming audiences to our Studio this summer and previewing some of the exciting theatre and comedy on this year’s festival circuit. We spoke to the creator of Head Set, a comedy making peace with our disordered and messy brains.

Tell us about yourself?
Hello my name is Victoria Melody. I make and perform theatre about Britain’s Enthusiasts. I am passionate about other people’s passions. I embed myself into communities for a really long time, usually around 4 years. I learn behaviours, rituals and skills that are completely outside of my realm of experience. Then I make shows about the World I’ve been embedded in and the people I’ve met.

In the past I’ve become a pigeon fancier, a northern soul dancer, a beauty queen, I was Mrs Brighton on 2011, but nobody else entered. I’ve been a championship dog handler, a funeral director, I’ve been a police officer but that was a bit illegal.

What inspired you to make the show?
After making a theatre show with my cantankerous dad and falling out with him and theatre. I decided to quit my career in theatre and turn to my plan B; the thing I’ve always secretly known I’d be brilliant at… stand-up comedy. I embedded myself into the amateur stand up scene, a world with its own rules, culture and behaviours. Problem is stand-up is much harder than it seems and I’ve always struggled with communication and words. In my mind I sound like a genius but what comes out of my mouth sounds like a baby, a baby woman.

Driven by an ambition to become a better stand-up I seek out help from a speech and language specialist, leading to a string of diagnosis’s and finds out at the grand old age of 40 that I have ADHD. Using wearable technology and working with a neuroscientist we make a revolutionary discovery that might be a natural cure for ADHD.

What can audiences expect when they come to see the show?
Head Set is a hilarious, insightful and surreal odyssey. It’s an anthropological study of the British amateur comedy scene and what it’s like to actively gig on the open mic scene. Think Louis Theroux in theatre form. It’s also a show about celebrating what makes us spontaneously and uniquely funny. People coming to the previews have said they find it uplifting, funny and smart.

Head Set will be in The Studio on Wednesday 13 July and you can book tickets here.