Comedian Kirsty Mann unearths Skeletons of secret double-life for Fringe debut

Award-winning writer and comedian, Kirsty Mann, has been keeping a secret—she’s a doctor. But please don’t tell anyone, she wants people to take her seriously as a comedian. Fresh from a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, Kirsty Mann is bringing Skeletons to Fringe World this summer, showing at My Little Bookshop at Rocky Fringe Festival in Rockingham on Monday, January 22; and The Little Palais at The Pleasure Garden from Friday, January 19 to Sunday, January 28. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with Kirsty Mann to find out about the hilarious situations she’s put herself in to protect her secret double-life.

Congrats on bringing your show Skeletons to Fringe this summer! Coming off a Fringe season in Edinburgh, what have you enjoyed most about bringing your story to the stage so far?

Thanks so much! I’m very excited. I really enjoy the pre-show music. It’s worth coming just for that. Also, there’s a bit where I act out a scene from E.R., and I must say, I’m brilliant in it. But seriously, so far, I have most enjoyed the audience reaction. Lots of people have come up to me in the street afterwards, left me little notes at the stage door, or DM’d me saying how the show has touched them—it’s been a really special experience, and I can’t wait to keep showing people.

What are you most looking forward to about coming to Australia?

Quokkas!

Living a double life as a comedian and a doctor must have been challenging. What’s something you did that you never thought you’d do to protect your secret?

When I got married, there were a lot of people in my life who didn’t know I was a doctor. So planning a wedding was quite stressful. As a result, there were people to whom I had to confess (stressful), others to whom I couldn’t bear to confess so didn’t invite (stressful; some still don’t speak to me), but there were some I couldn’t confess to and couldn’t avoid inviting (really stressful). So I kept the medics and creatives at opposite ends of the room at dinner and made sure the music was turned up really loud so that they couldn’t talk to each other. My husband is called Mark. He doesn’t know I’m a doctor.

Not really. He’s a doctor, although now he works in scientific research. We met in A&E. I was doing a locum shift, and he was my superior that day. I introduced myself to him, and instead of responding, he glared at me and stalked off—I knew then he was the one—and then I was extra cagey about how we met and let people assume we met online.

I’ve got so many other stories about the knots I tied myself in, but you’ll have to come to the show to hear them.

You must have had friends in both worlds, too. How did you navigate that?

Yeah, I have really close friends in each part of my life, and I would just restrict conversations to subjects we had in common. If a comedy person asked what I’d been up to, I’d be vague (e.g., “Oh, you know, the usual, what about you?”). or pick something that was true (e.g., I’ve been listening to an amazing podcast and have you seen the Beatles’ thing on Netflix and, omg, did you hear that Anoushka and Tom have split up) and then omit the bit about doing two kidney transplants overnight.

And then I tried as hard as I possibly could to keep them separate. I avoided any situation in which I might be discovered. Of course, some people did know, and there were more and more leaky taps, especially when a series of TikTok videos went very viral (I made them with Dipak Patel; check them out). It was like living in a game of whack-a-mole, until I decided to come clean by doing a show.

What’s something that comedy and medicine have in common? Are there any advantages to doing both?

Well, they’re both great jobs with extreme highs and lows. As a hospital doctor, you always have a team around you to rely on, whereas as a comedian, when you’re on stage, you’re on your own, which is exciting but can also be very scary. Being a doctor is good preparation for comedy festivals because it means I’m used to having breakfast at 7 p.m. and being awake all night.

Bringing a solo comedy show to our stages may be new, but you have been doing comedy for quite some time. What kinds of roles and performances have you had in the past?

I trained in musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music, and then I worked in straight theatre for a while. Over the years, I played Cinderella, Margaret Thatcher, a dead social worker, and a moorhen. I once did a Fringe show where I had to eat dog food and didn’t get paid! Probably my most interesting job was working with a company called Pimlico Opera, which takes operas into prisons, rehearses them, and performs them alongside the inmates to external audiences. I did that for three consecutive years, and it was the best experience. I met some really interesting people and learned so much.

In terms of comedy, I actually came to Perth Fringe a few years ago performing with double-act Frisky & Mannish. I met a man outside the library, had a whirlwind romance, and fell in love. He asked me how old I was (28). I told him to guess; he guessed wrong; I didn’t correct him. We continued our relationship over WhatsApp once I was back in the UK, and a few months later we arranged to meet up in the middle (aka Sri Lanka), but then I accidentally told him my real age, and he cancelled the trip. I wonder if I’ll see him this year!

What’s next for you on the other side of Fringe World? Which of your two lives is going to be more of a focus for the rest of 2024?

I’m going to do some travel around Australia and visit friends in Sydney. Then London transfer. Write the TV version. Get back to working on some other projects that have been on hold for a while, including a musical about some royals. Watch this space. I love being a doctor, but it’s not the focus of my life right now. It’s on pause—I’ll leave it to the full-timers.