Finding peace and purpose after leaving the rat race - Chichester Fringe

On stage, she is Blodwen navigating the highs and lows of 9-5 living and starting to plot her escape.

At its core, the show is about letting go: of expectations, of toxic ambition, of the ladder and and finding peace, purpose, and power in unexpected places.”

Emily explains: “The title speaks for itself. It's about her moving to London and then getting the chance to join at a very low level an advertising agency, and then it's about her journey in falling in love with that world and then her journey in falling out of love with it.

“She falls in love with it because it's exciting and it's everything she saw on TV, wearing the business suits and going to the cocktail nights and all the other things that the rest of the world think are very important. It feels like an achievement but then she starts to ask herself lots of questions about what is it all for. The answer differs for everybody, and there are plenty of people who love that life and it is right for them. So it's not a criticism of that life and that world at all, but it's just that she is somebody that finds that it is not really what she wants. It is a play that is part stand-up, part mid-life crisis and part mid-life epiphany.

“It is based on personal experience and I have put the future in it that I want to have. I just want to be out on a boat all the time! For me it is about realising what we actually want in life and finding those things, finding them out for yourself and learning that how things are presented in your world are not necessarily how they have to be. It's about learning what you want in life for yourself. And it's about the joy in life in finding what it is that you are truly utterly, utterly passionate about. Personally I can't believe how much I love being on a boat. Every time I get on one, I think the novelty is going to wear off but it just hasn't happened yet. And the show is about Blodwen discovering that she has got this incredible feeling for something that she didn't realise she would ever want.

“The show is a bit of an eclectic mix. There are a couple of different characters in the show and I play all of them. And there is a mix of songs. There is your typical big 11 o’clock number where she realises that she wants something else in her life. There is the patter comedy song and there is a sea shanty. There is also a soulful ballad. There's a little bit of poetry to send you off. It is light hearted and it is relatable. I did an early version at the Edinburgh Fringe which was not all my original songs. Now it is all my own songs, and the great thing is that the feedback from people is ‘This could be the story of my life!’ People find it really relatable. Cliches exist because they are true. We have all met the CEO who behaves like this or the office manager who behaves like that. Everybody will know what I'm talking about.”

Emily has been performing on the London cabaret scene for ten years, and Escape the Rat Race is her third one-woman show. She trained at The Poor School and The Actors Centre with Paulus L Martin, cabaret performer and former judge on BBC1's All Together Now.