Chichester Fringe is offering us all the chance to meet Shirley The Middle-Aged Siren, the creation of Debbie Bridge.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:06this morning to speak to Debbie Bridge, who's bringing a very interesting character to the
00:10Chichester Fringe. You will be appearing in Chichester as Shirley, the middle-aged siren.
00:16Now this is siren quite literally, siren with a green tail, siren as in coming out of the sea.
00:22Who is Shirley then, and why is she wanting to talk to us in Chichester?
00:26Well, New Yorker, I'm from New York originally as Shirley, but of course as Debbie, I'm from
00:32Vancouver, Canada. And Shirley is here because she wants to spread the word about what happens
00:40to you when you get older, in particular for females in the mer world. But it's a fun,
00:46tongue-in-cheek cabaret musical theatre event. And it's a lot of fun where we get to play
00:54together. We get to sing together. We do a little bit of dancing, tiny bit of dancing,
00:58by the way, in the chair. Basically, I call it elderly chair-obics. And yeah, she's just a lot
01:03of fun. We go through songs that you probably have heard, but with a slightly fishy angle to them.
01:11That sounds good fun. Now oddly, Shirley kind of came to you in the bath, didn't she?
01:16She did. She had a very watery beginning.
01:19Appropriately watery.
01:21Absolutely. It's perfect. Yeah, I was lying in the bath one day. I guess it's because I stopped
01:27long enough in the bathtub. And I was thinking, why aren't there any older females in paintings
01:34or advertising or anything? You see like Poseidon, who's an older male, but there's no older women
01:40that you see that are in the mer world, as I call it. And so this is Shirley's tale, so to speak.
01:47And she's on land to explain why you never see these ladies, because they get put out to sea
01:53and they're told to go hide under a rock if they're not going to look out.
01:55Is she on a mission? She wants them to educate?
01:59She wants humans to appreciate women of a certain age or anybody of a certain age,
02:04really, or just people who maybe don't quite fit in. And to, you know, kind of embrace and accept
02:11and also encourage people that if you feel like you're on the outskirts, you know, you're never
02:16too old, it's never too late to join in and be who you want to be and do what you want to do in
02:21life. And as you're saying, the essence is to be kind to yourself, isn't it?
02:24Yes. Yeah. And love yourself so that you can love the world around you,
02:27because we really need that today. We do indeed. Fantastic. Well,
02:31it sounds a great show. Lovely to speak to you. Have a great time with it. Thank you.