An Interview with Julia Joy

Century old operettas revived & revitalized for the 2024 Fringe – the Mumble just had to find what was going on

Hello Julia, can you tell us where you’re from, & where you are living today?
Hello! Originally I’m from Budapest, Hungary and at the moment I’m based in London.

When did you first develop an interest into the arts?
I was 13. My mum took me to an Irish dance class and it was love at first sight in the cheesiest possible way. I got obsessed with it. Shortly my passion has broadened to other dance styles and I started ballet, contemporary and jazz, with a particular interest in musical theatre.

Can you tell us about your training?
I went into vocational dance training as a contemporary dancer at the Hungarian Dance Academy, and then I continued my training at the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest where I did a physical theatre course. I moved to London in 2018 to complete my MFA in Choreography at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and dance.

You are bringing a show to the Edinburgh Fringe, can you tell us all about it?
Of course! SAVOY! Everybody’s Doing It is a musical about love, (in)fidelity, and marriage. In my experience many people in our generation feel trapped or unhappy in the traditional marriage patterns we’ve inherited from previous generations. As we age, societal pressures and expectations weigh heavily on us. SAVOY! aims to spark thoughts and questions about finding a way out of this cycle. On the musical side SAVOY! is a collection of operettas arranged and modernised by our brilliant musical director, Samuel Macdonald. The importance of this is that operettas as a genre aimed to reflect on contemporary, relevant issues and to tell stories that were filled with cheeky, occasionally even forbidden romantic adventures. Despite the seriousness of the subject, we approach it with comedy, sarcasm, and absurdity – but we are unafraid to dive into the depth of it all at the right moments.

Where & when was the first idea for the show planted?
We first started working on SAVOY! in 2022 at the Phoenix Arts Club in London. The idea came from the desire to bring something to the British musical theatre scene that is authentically ours. It started out as a fun show with great tunes – initially we were only writing a script to connect the songs. This, however, led to the creation process of our lead character, Naurelia Riddell (played by the glorious Kilke John. Naurelia is a half-human, half-divine narrator with superpowers and insights into all things relationships. She delights in manipulating a cast of four mortals while constantly addressing and engaging with the audience. She draws inspiration from iconic literary characters such as Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, and Esther Perel, the globally renowned couple’s therapist.

You work’d on the script with Bernadett Swann – can you tell us about her & your shared creative process?
Bernadett and I have created the original concept together. She’s a brilliant Hungarian actress based in London, running her own film production company (Asterion Films) and has played an incredibly important part in the SAVOY! journey. At the moment she is focusing on a brand new adventure which is not industry but family related 🙂

You are juggling being both the director & the choreographer – how are you finding the role?
Extremely hard! In the best possible way. Stemming from my physical theatre training, I approach theatre as a holistic form of art which in the end is only concerned with telling a story. We start singing when there’s no possible combination of words to express our feelings and movement/dancing happens when words fail us for good. Directing and choreographing are two different parts of the same process for me, in which sometimes we use words and at other times we tap, depending on what the story asks for.

Can you tell us about your working relationship with producer, Norbert Potornai?
He’s my husband 😉 Norbert and I have been working together for more than ten years. We used to run our former company, the Coincidance Ballet Theatre together. Our work toured in Mexico, Israel, Germany, Denmark and many other countries around the globe. We’ve founded NP&JOY Entertainment recently and we have some exciting plans with it!

When you visit Edinburgh, what are you looking forward to most about engaging with both the Fringe & the city itself?
I honestly can’t wait to play the show every day. I’m also very excited to go and see shows and to connect with other artists.

You bump into somebody in the streets of Edinburgh & have 20 seconds to sell your show – what do you say?
“Would you like to know the answer to humanity’s ultimate fidelity problem? It all started with a telegram you received this morning. It’s from your mother. Catch us tonight at 7 pm, in the C Aquila Temple.”

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