Bringing another stand-up hour to Edinburgh, ‘My MILF-shake Brings All The Boys to the Yard’ and ‘Character Building Experience’, Sasha Ellen chats with Pepper&Salt about everything from why ‘Frasier’ is the perfect sitcom, what MILF really means and how transitional points in life are viewed from an outside perspective.
What is the elevator pitch for your show?
Well, the show’s called My MILF-shake Brings All The Boys To The Yard, the obvious pun being MILF. It’s a show about being in your 30s and all the things that change, and all the things that nobody ever warned you about. I’m also doing a show called Character Building Experience, which is a Dungeons and Dragons style comedy role playing game show, so anybody can walk in and understand what’s going on. It’s just a silly, nerdy game show.
My solo show is a stand-up show so it’s light-hearted in nature, but it’s got some heavier themes, whereas the game show is purely chaotic fun. It’s a little bit of a different vibe. So generally, we have a panel of three comedians and it’s different every day. Sometimes we’ll have somebody permanent in who will go on this whole big adventure and link all the stories together, but generally you could walk in at any point and just have this lovely one-shot, self-contained storyline, but does link to a wider story if you’d like to experience that. Generally, it’s got people from different disciplines though a lot of people that we have on are comedians, who just come and try to break everything, because that’s what comedians do! It’s still a lot of fun to watch them try. It’s a fun show. I host the shows, I co-write the storylines with a friend of mine, so it’s not anarchy, although occasionally it is.
How does Character Building Experience work?
Over the years, what we’ve tried to basically make sure that the show is simple enough for anybody to understand. It’s not Dungeons and Dragons, it’s a spoof of Dungeons and Dragons; all the abilities are silly, all the characters are silly, all the items are silly, and it’s a very quick thing to explain and then you’re in it. So, while it has a sort of nod and a wink and little references for people who are very nerdy and who will kind of look at things in a lot of detail, the ethos of the show is very much anybody should be able to walk into that room and a) understand what’s going on and b) enjoy the show.
What has been your favourite moment from Character Building Experience?
It’s a tricky one because all the shows are weird. A perfect show is when it becomes a weird running joke for an hour, when something happens at the beginning, and then you just have to accept the reality of the situation for this hour, that this is what’s happening. And it’s so difficult to take out of context because it’s an in-joke with the people in the room for that specific amount of time, so I can take moments out but they don’t necessarily make as much sense; that sentient tree that invaded that attic that one time. It doesn’t mean much but it was glorious to watch once upon a time.
How long have you been running Character Building Experience?
Our first show was in 2019 and that was a tiny, tiny 20-seater room that was built for bored businessmen and a stripper. But we crammed 20 people in plus 4 performers and tech, which was a lot, and it was a lot of fun. I think one of the acts just lost a stone through just sweating, it was a sauna. But it was a really fun year to do it. And then nothing happened in 2020 or 2021, of course. We came back in 2022 with some of the same people, which was lovely and then last year we did it in a room where we could breathe a bit, which was delightful. And in the evening so we had slightly fewer confused children. So, this is our fourth Fringe.
What are you looking forward to the most at the fringe this year?
I’m really looking forward to being back in Edinburgh. I think it’s a beautiful city, I’ve spent a lot of summers there and it’s just a wonderful place to be. I’m really looking forward to doing both shows which is going to be a lot of fun, so I’m going to be performing a lot. I’m looking forward to the food, that’s always lovely. Amazing food scene in Edinburgh, and just looking forward to seeing all the comedians that I don’t get to see all year round.
What do you hope audiences take away from My MILF-shake Brings All The Boys to the Yard?
I think with anything to do with age and new stage of life, I think what you want is for people to walk away going, “And that’s fine. Things are going to change.” It’s comforting that they change for everyone and that the only constant is change.
How does this show fit in with your previous stand-up hours?
Somebody pointed out to me recently that my last two shows, the titles have been drink themed, because the last one was Sasha Ellen: When Life Gives You Ellens Make Ellenade and this one is My MILF-Shake Brings All the Boys To The Yard, so the next one has to be Sasha Ellen On The Rocks. I have to have a drinks trilogy. I tend to write about things that are going on with me that year. A friend of mine described it as The Chronicles of Sasha, which I’m happy with. I think you write about whatever it is that you’re thinking about at the time, as you change your shows change.
During the process of writing your stand-up hour, what has been the most surprising revelation that you’ve come across?
The kind of things that everybody goes through that we don’t necessarily talk about, that’s been a bit of a revelation. There are some really weirdly universal experiences that happen in your 30s that we don’t necessarily acknowledge and we kind of just role with the punches on them. So, it’s been nice to share that. I had a lovely bit of audience interaction where I was talking about how my target advertising has really changed, like the Internet doesn’t know what to sell me- because of all my terrible life choices- and a lady in the front row who was sitting next to her husband just went, “I know, I keep being advertised divorce!” And it’s just such a lovely universal thing of like all of us sometimes are just scrolling down our feed going, “God, what have I clicked on, what is this?! How hard has it been listening?”
There’s almost an over-arching viewpoint of Hollywood, where women ‘exist’ between the ages of 17 and 29, but then disappear until the age of 45. How does this kind of dynamic play into your show?
It’s definitely a thing where people don’t quite know what to do with you in your 30s unless you kind of fulfil a very particular role. I definitely think about that in the show and in life. A lot. But I guess going off that, I’m really looking forward to being 45. Gosh, that’s gonna be fun. There’s definitely a feeling like you’re in between things except of course this isn’t an in-between bit, this is your actual life.
What has the transition between your Friends and your Sex and the City years looked like?
It’s been okay, it’s been alright. It’s one of those things where I think it’s more how people see you as more of a transition than the actual things that you do. If you look at those two sitcoms – not in depth, nobody should be looking at those two sitcoms in depth – but if you look on the surface they’re kind of about groups of friends having fun, trials and tribulations and all the rest of it. But the way that those people are seen is very, very different. I think that’s why Friends is watched by so many young people because it’s just, it’s got this kind of lightness, and Sex and the City does too to a large extent. But the way people see you changes more than you change.
Is there a sitcom that falls between those two extremes?
Here’s the thing, I think Frasier is the perfect sitcom. I’ve argued this before, I think Frasier is the perfect sitcom because it features this range of ages that’s just great because you can have a life in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and your 50s and your 60s and your 70s. And you can still go and do your career things and have a love life and have sex and have stupid, dumb arguments because maybe you haven’t learned as much as you think you have in your however many decades you’ve spent on this planet. They have these characters some of which are young, some of which are older, and you can have a life at any point of that, you can be the main character at any point in that. It’s not like you age out of being a person, which is nice. So, I think the in-between of that would be my favourite sitcom which is Frasier.
If it’s not too much of a spoiler, what is the weirdest thing that a doctor has recommended in order to live longer?
They recommend all sorts of things; it’s been very up and down. Lose weight and reduce stress but said in the same sentence. You can’t be less stressed if you’ve told me to lose weight, I’m gonna be stressed, dude. I’m going to be so, so stressed. I think reducing stress is one of those things where they kind of go, “Oh just do it, have a glass of wine, but don’t.” It’s a very confusing bit of advice. They’ll say the most terrifying things to you one after the other, but don’t be stressed, sun’s shinin’.
What is MILFdom?
The thing is MILF stands for Mum I’d Like To bleep, and you don’t need a child for it, you can get that without a child, apparently. I don’t know what defines a MILF at this point, because I feel like the ILF bit defines it more than the M of that acronym, which makes it much creepier than it should be. I think it’s a very wishy-washy term that we throw around for effect.
How did you know you wanted to be a comedian?
I’ve always watched a lot of comedy I’ve always really enjoyed watching comedy so as a child I watched a lot of sitcoms. And I still do. But then when I became a teenager, I started watching a lot of stand-up and a lot of stand-up specials. I kind of always knew that I want to do that.
What is a piece of advice that you wish you knew before you started comedy?
I guess, just that comedy’s very up and down, it’s got highs and lows and just really remembering that; if you have a bad gig, you’ll have a good gig next. Overall, it’s going to be absolutely fine, it’s up and down and that’s the nature of the beast.
It feels like every time the Fringe rolls around, we hear a lot of stories from women about their experiences in the industry and green rooms, which sort of tail off once the Fringe ends. Has the industry gotten better for female comedians or are we just ignoring a huge issue for most of the year?
I think those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, I think overall things have gotten better, there’s improvement but it’s such an endemic problem that it’s something that we’re going to be working on for years. I guess a sort of positive reframing of looking at it is, look we’re shining a light on it during the Fringe, which is nice. But yes, we talk about it a lot less at any other time and it has sort of become unfashionable to, which is a shame.
What are steps that can be taken to support artists?
It’s a tricky one, I think it’s a case-by-case dependent thing. I think it’s very difficult to give a piece of advice that is completely and utterly broad stroke and that’s why people focus so heavily on awareness because if that awareness is there you can then tailor that to specific situations, for specific places, specific people. Which is why we have this kind of broad ‘just be aware that this exists and modify your behaviour’ on a case-by-case basis.
In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?
I think there are certain things that you can get away with saying if they’re funny. If you make something funny enough, if you make your attitude clear enough, there are certain things but that’s just how jokes are built. And there’s always that question of how much of a joke is this which is why the fool gets away with what he gets away with, because of course there’s always that hanging question mark. And you can dig down as far as you want to how truthful it is, but again it’s a very difficult grey area to go, “how much of this do you mean?” There’s a wonderful Mike Birbiglia show called Thank God For Jokes where the reoccurring thing he says is, “I was joking!” And he has this wonderful routine where he says that people who are bad at jokes shouldn’t make jokes because if you have to say, “I was joking,” at the end, it’s not a joke you’ve just said something awful. I think you have to read the room, that’s the only thing you can ever really do. You have to be able to read the room and if you’ve misread the room you have to go, “Sorry, I’ve misread this. My bad.”
By Katerina Partolina Schwartz
Photo Credit : Karla Gowett
Pepper & Salt 
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