Wakefield-based theatre maker Natalie Bellingham's first solo show heads up to the Edinburgh Fringe
Among those travelling north to the Fringe is Wakefield-based theatre maker Natalie Bellingham who will be previewing her new solo show at Yorkshire venues, including Leeds Playhouse, in the coming weeks. Look After Your Knees, as the title suggests, takes a humorous look at the ups and downs of growing older but also explores themes around making connections, loss, facing and accepting change, looking to the future and letting go of the past.
Bellingham, an acclaimed performer and physical comedian, was co-founder of Uncanny Theatre and she toured original work around the UK for a decade. She uses comedy, storytelling, clowning, movement and interaction to uncover some of the things in life that we may find it difficult to talk about.
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Hide Ad“The show is a celebration of being human in all its banality, sprinkled with joy and ridiculousness,” she says. “It is about a person trying to unwrap a new version of themselves in a world they don’t recognize and a life they seem uncomfortably in charge of. It is also about facing change when you don’t see it coming. It’s about what comes next.”


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After her work with Uncanny Theatre, Bellingham was exploring other avenues. “I wanted to make work in a new way and with different people,” she says. She started co-creating a show with Italian theatre maker Daniele Pennati The Polar Bear (is Dead) about loss, climate change – and the Spice Girls, but the development of that was interrupted by lockdown. (It did eventually tour to great acclaim last year). During the period of enforced pause, Bellingham had time to reflect. “I thought that I would like to have a go at making a solo show and it felt like the right time to do it,” she says.
Coming out of lockdown, she signed up to a retreat run by her friend Jamie Wood, who co-created and directs the show. “The format was that you would come along with an idea for a show, share it and work on it with other artists. I wasn’t actually sure if I had an idea but then it began to emerge. I thought at first it was about my mum – she died in January 2020 – but gradually it became clear that it was more about me and who I am now. I had a very complicated relationship with my mum. She was quite a dominant presence in my life and I realized that she was a big part of how I navigated the world, myself and everything. When that is taken away, you can feel a bit lost. I was very sad when she died but also, I didn’t know what to do with all the space and time she left behind.”
It is a very candid, generous and personal show and I wonder if making a solo performance such as this has felt exposing. “I have always made shows that are about feeling and thinking, sometimes they have had an autobiographical element and sometimes they haven’t, but I think this is the most honest show I have done,” she says. “I don’t want it to feel that it is all about me though. I’m turning 40 next year, so it is also a mid-life reflection, which is something we all go through. I hope I have left the show open enough that people will find a range of different things in it. I am sharing specific aspects of my experience, but sometimes you need a bit of specificity to make something universal. And it is funny, people will laugh.”
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For several years Bellingham, who studied at Bretton Hall, has also worked with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park designing and delivering a number of creative projects, and she likens the show to a piece of sculpture. “You make an artwork and you walk away from it and then the hope is that someone will come and see it, bring their own experiences to it and take something away from it.”
In many ways she says the show is also about learning to move on. “I find change tricky; I hold on to things forever and learning to let go of them is hard but necessary. So, it’s about looking back, deciding what to keep and trusting you have it in you to embark on your next chapter the way you really want to, for yourself.”
Look After Your Knees is at Ripon Theatre Festival, July 3, CAPA in Wakefield, July 4 and Bramall Rock Void at Leeds Playhouse, July 26. Details and tickets lookafteryourknees.show/#booking