My Inspiration: Krystal Evans – The Hottest Girl At Burn Camp

US-born/UK-based comedian, Krystal Evans (as seen on BBC’s Comedy Underground, Scot Squad, Breaking the News), is set to take The Newcastle Fringe Festival by storm with her show The Hottest Girl At Burn Camp on Saturday 22nd July at The Cumberland Arms.

Here, Krystal tells us what inspired the show…

I went through a lot in my childhood. You never think how you’re growing up is abnormal while you’re in it, though. I thought, “Wow. We have really bad luck!”

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the US in the 90s/2000s.

Jokes were the way my family dealt with hard things. The best memories of my childhood are when someone would make the most inappropriate joke at the worst moment, and we would all cry with laughter. It felt like a breath of fresh air when we were drowning. I knew I wanted to give the audience this same experience. Laughter is always a relief; but I feel it’s so much more satisfying when it’s coming from a place of authenticity and honesty. Laughter can be connection. 

This show is completely different from any of my stand-up material up to this point. It contains things that are a big part of me, but that I haven’t told anyone new about in years. I had it in the back of my mind that I could possibly write about it and do a show about this someday, but ultimately any time I’d dipped my toe into talking about deep stuff or hard stuff, it always got a mixed reaction from audiences. So, I backed away from it. What ultimately changed was the pandemic coinciding with me having my 2nd baby. I had very intense post-natal depression that included vivid intrusive thoughts involving details from a house fire that I escaped as a 14-year-old that I thought I’d put to bed. After I got help for it, I knew I wanted to share my story and make it funny.

As for the contents of the show, it has been a scary thing for me to put out there, because I thought I’d get judgement from others including my family. And to be blunt, I have. Some of my family members are very supportive (including my aunt-mum’s sister and my dad) and others have not been so supportive. And that’s a tough thing; but ultimately, this is my story and I’m the only one who can tell it.

I’m proud of this show because to me, it represents the fact that the stuff I went through, all my trauma, my loss, my intrusive thoughts, my anxiety- all tried to fuck me up and make me a crazy person- but it all failed. Because, hey trauma, fuck you, I am normal. I am thriving. You tried your best to bring me down but you couldn’t.

And even more than that, I can turn the horrible things I went through into something beautiful and funny and connect with people and maybe even help other people through their hard shit and inspire other artists. I just want people to know that having a dark past or a troubled upbringing is not a death sentence, and we are all allowed to deal with our hard shit in whatever way we want to. Also, there’s jokes about clam cum so there’s something for everybody.