133 / 298
bite
actor
profile
telling me I needed to do it.” Following the
success of their first sketch, a mimicry of
day-time TV shows, in which presenters
made products such as panpipes out of
tampons, Anna conquered her fears and
performed alongside Beth in London and
at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with their
double act, ‘Daylords’.
It was also during this time that
Morris worked behind the scenes writing
interviews for the Paul O’Grady show, a
dream come true for Anna who regards
the presenter as a role model and idol.
However, touring as part of a stand-up
duo and writing for a prime time TV show
exhausted Anna who, again, sought refuge
in travel; something which motivated
Morris to take her life in a new direction:
“On holiday I had this idea for a bride
character. It sounds crazy but this voice just
came into my head. I had been to several
weddings that year, which clearly influenced
the idea. The voice was similar to that of
two women I had heard in a café who
were being quite rude to the waiter and I
must have picked up on it. I started doing
silly impersonations and my mum told
me I should make something of it. When
I came back from holiday, I asked the advice
of my friend who was a director also and he
said, ‘that’s hilarious, you have to do it at a gig!’”
Following this spark of inspiration, Morris wrote
up a ten minute sketch and performed it live.
It was this moment that pushed her to launch
her own solo career. Reminiscing, eyes almost
closed, Anna said, “The first time I did it at a
gig I thought it was going to go horribly wrong
because I had never performed on stage on
my own, I was so scared but I did it and people
really liked it. I tapped into something people
recognised, maybe they had met someone
similar or they could relate to the wedding
references. Beth and I had quite different styles
and often I was hiding myself behind these big
wigs or male characters. I thought why not
develop more characters that are suited to me
so we decided to go off separately and do our
own things.”
In the following months, Anna’s character
of ‘Georgina the Bride’ became an internet
sensation, landing her the same spot at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival as respected female
comedian Cariad Lloyd had the previous year in
theVoodoo Rooms bar.A spot in which Lloyd’s
show gained a nomination for the festival’s
comedy award.With this as an incentive, Morris
pulled her resources and began work to create
a comedy show compromising of six powerful
female characters, “I was taken aback when I
got given both Cariad’s time slot and venue.
I know Cariad well and she is just amazing.
I think she really has set the bar for a lot of
emerging female stand-up comics. Originally I
was planning on basing the entire show around
the character of Georgina and creating other
characters at the wedding reception but when
I heard about the room I knew I had to take
it up a notch so I started devoting more time
to the show and creating other characters,
moving away from the bride to more surreal
material.”
Surreal, indeed, it was. Morris’s finished
product, Dolly Mixture, offered six unique,
powerful and hilarious female characters
leaving audiences and reviewers both in
stitches and awe. From the starting point
of Georgina the Bride was the contrasting
character of Dr. Andrea Andrew, an American
feminist lecturer who pioneers the ‘Bitch’
campaign against women entering marriages. In
her other diverse characters, Morris engaged
with audiences from the opening with nervous
17-year-old Scottish comedy student, who
encourages the crowd to heckle and assess
her skills to Jeanine, the charming manager of
budget cruise ship company ‘Watership Down
Cruises’ who turns out to actually be the stern
commander in a nuclear submarine mission in
which the audience helps her to find terrorists.
In an all-woman slapstick act, Morris
conveys a deeper message in the character of
Australian TV personality, Taylor, who presents
‘WhatThe Fuck Is SheWearing?’, a programme
devoted to tearing apart the clothing
choices of celebrities and audience
members alike and also in the beauty
adverts included between each scene for
products invented by final character, Una
Moritz.Through the use of props such as
false eyelashes made from pipe cleaners
and lip gloss which is applied through a
boxing glove Morris communicates her
opinions of the modern beauty industry:
“The inventor of all these products comes
out at the end of the show and says she
has a new life changing product that will
make you look younger instantly. It is called
face sock. I re-recorded the Hanson song
‘MMMBop’ using the words ‘face sock’
instead. I wear flesh coloured stockings
and tights cut into tubes around my neck
and pull them up and cover my entire face
and that’s what face sock is. The motto
is ‘no face is the new face’, which came
from this anger I have with airbrushing
because even though it is used to make
people look better, everyone just ends
up looking the same so you may as well
not have a face. All the shows I have ever
done I always die at the end because I
can never think of an ending. So I decided
wouldn’t it be funny if she got so obsessed
with looking young that she puts too many
on and suffocates. It is weird in the reviews no
one really picks up on what I was trying to say
about the beauty industry.” Through implying
that the contemporary obsession with fakery
and perfection in the popularity of tanning
products and false eyelashes could be taken
to the level where someone would risk their
life to look beautiful adds a more profound
dimension to what is essential just a comic act.
With strong opinions of the modern
beauty industry and a firm belief in staying
true to yourself, Morris hopes that the future
of stand-up comedy will be more universal
with regards to sexism: “People presume
that when a woman gets on stage there will
be a certain reaction but I think this view is
outdated. I do not think the audience really
care if you are male or female so long as you
are funny. Opinions are really changing now. I
have been to gigs where I have been the only
female comedian there and I have not felt or
been treated any differently. It will not be long
before anyone even questions the ability of
female comics and that is very exciting.”
Head firmly on her shoulders Anna looks
towards her own future with a realistic yet
positive attitude.Drawing on her background in
television, Morris is currently working towards
developing Dolly Mixture into a TV show:
“Ideally, if I could do anything I would have my
own show where I have my characters all in this
show and I do something a bit different with
my cover story as to how they all connect or a
sketch show where I can do all sorts.” Looking
to expand her horizons, Anna is also willing to
work again on screen in shows other than her
own,“I would like to be in other sitcoms. I had
quite a few castings but I only got an agent in
October so I am still quite new to the whole
industry.” However, with years of experience,
a talent for creating unique characters and
unquestionable determination, there is no
doubt Morris has a bright future ahead of her.
www.annamorris.co.uk