Aberystwyth comic Mel Owen takes a hammer to her mixed Welsh-Jamaican identity in her Edinburgh Fringe show ‘Chunky Monkey’.
The show unpicks how Owen - a farmer’s daughter who “grew up in wellies” - navigated life in deep rural Ceredigion as a mixed-race child who had no actual idea she was brown until embarrassingly late.
Through tales of catastrophic stage school auditions, a run in with a police horse and an unintentional theft of a croissant from Hugh Jackman, Mel challenges what identity means when you have been ‘othered’ your whole life, without you even knowing it.
This year has seen Mel’s career soar, with multiple sell-out shows including a spot at the Netflix Is A Joke festival, and a regular spot on the BBC’s ‘What Just Happened’. Later this year she embarks on a UK-wide tour as support for Welsh icon Kiri Pritchard-McLean.
If you're heading to Edinburgh Fringe, see Chunky Monkey at the Clover Studio, Greenside @ Riddle’s Court (Venue 16) at 9.50pm.