Recalls Meeting ‘Fleabag’ Phoebe Waller-Bridge during her standup comedy show, BC:AD – Before Children, After Diapers
Multi-Talented Anu Vaidyanathan’s is back with yet another season of her standup comedy show, BC:AD – Before Children, After Diapers that makes a return off-Broadway to New York’s SoHo Playhouse which has housed icons including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sam Shepard, Leroi Jones and the iconic Stress Factory where some of the best comedians have played including Aziz Ansari, Drew Carrey, Chris Rock and Zarna Garg.
With a half-dozen dates in her Indian tour between 14-24 July, her debut fringe show has traveled the world to wonderful audience reviews and the open embrace of new and well-established theatres to showcase her work.
Speaking about the run in America, Anu Vaidyanathan said: “I am very happy to share the same space as the iconic ‘Fleabag’ Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I believe meeting her at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier was a very special moment. I had just walked out of the gym, and I was handing out flyers when I saw this very nice coat and I made a beeline for it. As I started to pitch the show (I was in a slight hurry as my stomach was rumbling after a five-mile run) I looked up and remember thinking ‘Is this? No, this can't be… WTF! I clearly need new glasses…’ as I tried to curb my verbal diarrhea. A few seconds later, I said, ‘I know who you are’ and something else.
Later in the day, I got a copy of the photograph we took together and a note from the Fringe president saying, ‘Phoebe thought you were super and funny’. “I believe what followed was an asthma attack, but I can't remember.”
BC:AD (Before Children, After Diapers) is a standup comedy show and one mad, mommy’s take on how the definitions of words change before and during motherhood. This show is an invitation to anyone that finds themselves slightly overdrawn, mostly obscure and needing the sound of another voice to reason with their own challenges – be it parenting, identity or the infinite void between where we find ourselves and where we see ourselves in our daytime dreams. Through several stories from before she had children and after she changed loads of diapers, survived the institution called marriage and then found herself amidst two short roommates who insist on calling her ‘mom’, Anu paints a peripatetic picture of the life and times of a comedian, filmmaker and sometime engineer who loves endurance sports, including parenting.
Anu Vaidyanathan is among a very few women of Indian Origin to go to the Edinburgh Fringe with a whole stand-up comedy hour. She played at the Underbelly, which is a curated venue, where Fleabag made her debut. Her show has had incredibly positive audience reviews. This show has been programmed around the globe including off-Broadway in New York.
In addition, last year, Anu performed to packed houses in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, London, and some other smaller clubs in (Budapest, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Madrid). She has shared the stage with renowned named such as Michelle Wolf, Janine Harouni, Erika Ehler, and Lucy Pohl with TV/stage/film credits in London/USA.
BC:AD has toured in a dozen countries and over 30 cities for one of the most prolific runs of a debut show. The themes of motherhood, aspirations, modern parenting all told in the voice of a migrant, working mom has made for a relatable show that has been attended and loved by audiences worldwide. She is presently working on a new show titled 'Blimp' playing at the Edinburgh Fringe from 2-19 August and amid getting a feature film off the ground in her filmmaking journey.
Vaidyanathan is a filmmaker, comedian, and author based in Bengaluru. She has trained at various career courses at the NFTS, RADA, and Ecole Philippe Gaulier and has performed at various comedy festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2016, Vaidyanathan released her memoir, Anywhere but Home: Adventures in Endurance. The book chronicles her journey in long-course triathlon, culminating in finishing Ultraman Canada and Ironman Canada, three weeks apart. The book was longlisted for the Mumbai Film Festival’s inaugural Word-to-Screen market and marked the beginning of her career in film.
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