Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 – Lubna Kerr Chatterbox

Chatterbox is a humorous and touching semi-autobiographical one-woman show looking at the impact of the labels we are given as children.

Lubna, a little girl from Pakistan, was excited to be going to primary school in her new home city. But one minute she was called “stupid” for not speaking English – and then she was chastised as a “chatterbox” for speaking it too much.

In the second instalment of a planned trilogy on life growing up as a first-generation immigrant in 1970s Glasgow, actress, comedian and writer Lubna Kerr looks back to her childhood days. Despite being damned for not speaking English on arrival she didn’t think any the less of other people for not knowing Urdu. 

But even though she proved a very quick learner Lubna, like many people, was then given all sorts of other labels. Chatterbox takes a look at the labels we are given and how they persist into adulthood. 

It invites audiences to reflect on their own childhoods – the labels they were given and the effect they had. And then there’s the other big question, where did you find safety when neds chased you down the street? 

Chatterbox is the prequel to Tickbox (and the extended version Tickbox 2).

Special performances:

  • There will be a performance as part of Edinburgh Deaf Festival on 15 August with a BSL interpreter – https://edinburghdeaffestival.com
  • A touch tour will be available to those who are blind and partially sighted on the 14 August an hour before the show starts with access to audio description of the show on the Fringe website.

Listings