Showtime for Edinburgh Fringe-bound Inverness student
The 28-year-old also credits her course at Inverness College UHI for giving her the confidence to do it.
“I love what I do, going to Inverness College UHI and acting, performing and writing,” she said. “It has always been who I am, and something I have always wanted to do but felt I couldn’t for a long time.
“I always had it drilled in to me that I needed to find a strong job, that acting and performing was too whimsical. I used to work in a call centre and I was made redundant in 2014. It was the best thing that ever happened to me because all of a sudden I could do what I wanted to.
“The second I got onto the HNC it was like a lightbulb was switched on in my head. It has absolutely given me the confidence and drive to pursue my dreams.”
Kym studied a HNC in acting and performance before progressing to a BA in drama and performance, and will start the third year of the BA degree next month.
Before that she has around three weeks in Edinburgh with her shows.
She has written both plays and will perform Wandering Bones, the factual tale of John Adams – the last man to be publicly hanged in Inverness – as a one-woman show.
Her second play, One Man’s Junk, tells the story of two sisters who find hidden secrets in the attic after losing their grandmother to dementia. It stars Inverness College UHI students Petra Stolfa and Katie Watson, who will graduate from the BA course in September, and Amy McEwan, who is about to go into the honours year of the degree programme.
Kym (28) successfully applied to the Fringe – a global arts festival, which starts this week and ends on August 28 – after being encouraged by her college lecturers and script-writer friend Phil Baarda, who runs the Inverness Playwrights group at Eden Court in Inverness.
The idea for Wandering Bones came from work Kym undertook as part of her coursework. Having already come up with the concept, the former Charleston Academy pupil decided to try and develop it as a play, despite having never written one before or publicly showcasing her work.
“I was really interested in the story, which is fascinating,” said Kym, who lives in Beauly. “I also love the fact that very few people in Inverness know anything about John Adams.”
According to reports, John Adams moved to Inverness with his girlfriend Dorothy but lost his job. With no money to live, Adams moved back to Montrose where he married a rich woman called Jane. He brought her back to Inverness and killed her, thinking he would get away with it because nobody knew her. He was caught and hanged in 1835 at what is now the city’s Harbour Road roundabout.
When he died he became the ward of the police as he couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. At that time, the police station was in Church Street and he was buried under the cells. Later, the police moved to Castle Wynd, and his body moved too. He’s now thought to be somewhere under the Police Scotland car park in Old Perth Road.
Kym’s play was accepted by the Fringe but unfortunately her lead actor dropped out. Unable to find a replacement, she wrote One’s Man Junk as a back-up.
“While we were trying to work out what we were going to do, I had this idea going round my head for a play set in an attic,” she explained. “I thought I needed to come up with a Plan B in case Wandering Bones didn’t get off the ground.”
Both plays will be performed almost every day for three weeks.
“I’m really excited,” Kym said. “It’s an incredible achievement, which hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
As well as juggling two Fringe shows, Kym is also working with fellow BA Drama and Performance students Iona Milne, Amy Boyle and Laura Walker to set up children’s theatre company, PurpleBs Theatre, which hopes to run a series of shows at Inverness Library this year.
The students have set up the theatre company to make drama and performance more accessible and affordable to families.
“We wanted to create theatre for children that actively engages them from when they are babies, right through to adulthood,” Kym said. “We will be taking a more traditional approach to theatre with proper story-telling and audience participation.”
