Sofie Hagen: Bubblewrap

Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Road, Wednesday, October 21

IF Danish comic Sofie Hagen had an ambition it was to make a living from comedy.

But she didn’t expect a dream to come true on her first visit to the Edinburgh Fringe.

And that dream wasn’t to win the Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer – although she achieved that too.

“What matters to me most is when people in the audience feel like they want to reach out to me,” she says.

“On my first night a 15-year-old said the show had meant a lot to her. When I first wanted to do stand-up as a 14-year-old I wished I could do that for somebody – that I could really speak to somebody. It wasn’t even an ambition – an ambition is realistic – this was a dream.

“And on day one of the Fringe it happened. Everything that came after that was a bonus.”

Bubblewrap is the autobiographical story of a young woman overcoming a negative body image with the help of a certain Irish boy band.

“The smart way and safe way is to do a show based around the best of all your material,” says Hagen.

“But I’m really happy that I did the show I wanted to do. I would have got bored otherwise.”

The title of the show came from a moment of panic when she was trying to find something to put in the Edinburgh Fringe programme.

“Bubble is my favourite word in English,” she says. “The word bubblewrap is about protecting yourself, living in a bubble. I handed out bubblewrap at the end of the show which might be how I ended up winning the award!”

Part of her own emotional bubblewrap was her obsession with the band Westlife, which sustained her from the age of 11 to 15.

“It’s like the girls who go to see One Direction at MTV, screaming and crying, losing their minds,” she says.

“Following a boy band becomes your whole identity, it’s because there’s something missing from your life, or you’re a bit sad.

“The whole show is about how I learn from things, and why it happened. I can see that Westlife might not be the best band in the world, I can see how it’s all corporations manipulating young teenage girls, but at the same time it was four or five years of my life.

“Brian [McFadden] from Westlife followed me on Twitter two months ago,” she reveals with pride. “That feeling will always be there – I can’t get rid of it – they filled a void for so many years.”

Hagen began her stand-up career in her native Denmark, but found her rapid rise a little disconcerting.

“Denmark is very small, you become friends with all the comedians and can only play five places,” she says. “You can only gig twice a week if you’re lucky.

“My whole dream was to write for the Danish version of Saturday Night Live in ten years time.

“I was a year and a half into my career when they hired me.”

She decided to move to England and start again, beginning on the open mic circuit.

“My ambition is to keep growing,” she says. “In the UK you’re never done – you can never become the best comedian you can be, because there’s always more places to go.”

She has also started touring further afield – becoming the first international comic to play a stand-up show in Latvia.

“The scene in Germany is getting bigger,” she says. “Zimbabwe is part of a growing scene in Africa. Comedy is getting to the point where it will be a universal thing, like music. It can reach more people through YouTube and podcasts.”

A place she finds hard to play now though is Denmark.

“In London audiences are comedy literate,” she says. “People in Denmark aren’t as welcoming to a female comedian. They don’t know what they are watching and are scared of anything new. If you go on stage in Denmark half the audience will have never seen comedy before, and even less will have ever seen a female comedian. You have to convince them you’re going to be funny. It is a macho culture in Scandinavia – feminism is a bad word. It’s sad and frustrating to go back to.

“I love playing Brighton – going on stage is like getting a hug, you know it’s going to be fun.”

She has little to fear now, having performed Bubblewrap in front of a home audience which included her mother, her sister and her psychologist.

“There was a lot of pressure,” she says.

“My mother asked if anyone had said anything about what I had said about her. My psychologist was very nice. My sister was crying and very emotional. It was way more pressure than any reviewers – I should have done it before beginning in Edinburgh!”

Starts 9.15pm, tickets £11. Call 01273 709709.