Power

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Power 〰️

The Edinburgh Fringe is back for 2026, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re taking on POWER: Who’s got it? Where is it? Where should it be? How do you get it? Our comedians are the only ones with the answers.

By Katie Pritchard

I come from a long line of people with really useful and incredible skills – mostly in electronics. Yet here I stand before you, a woman in a giant suit made from velvet curtains that cost £6 in a West Walian charity shop, determined to spend her life prancing around for money. Name a more rebellious career decision than that? You can’t, I’m the ultimate rebel!

When I was 21, I was offered the chance to become my Grandad’s apprentice, but at the time all he wanted me to do was sell batteries, and I wanted to do something a bit more exciting. I didn’t realise that selling batteries would make me a powerful person, and could have been step one on a path that might lead me to soldering things all day chatting about circuit boards and being able to tell people I had patents pending too??!! If only I had known!

Whilst I have been busy prancing away, my family have been creating, inventing, and discovering things that have changed, even saved countless people’s lives! So here I am to prove that even though they may have achieved all these things…WE ARE EXACTLY THE SAME!

Invention 1: A Non-Spill Kettle

Have you ever wanted a cup of tea without a burnt hand? Now, you would think that all kettles have been designed to be non-spill, but this is simply not true. According to the Pritchard who patented this design, it is the only kettle where the design is focused on causing the least amount of spill possible. Amazing to know this was never a priority before.

Invention 2: A De-Furring Kettle

Have you ever wanted a cup of tea without a furry surprise (at the bottom of your cup)? That’s right we’re sticking with kettles – why have one cuppa when you could have two! Two separate Pritchards, two different kettles, but this one de-furs.

Come on Big Kettle Industries™! When will you stop being absolute monsters and merge these two inventions so we can have furless coffee which pours directly into the vessel you’re aiming it at?!!

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Invention 3: A Cure For Cancer?

Moving slightly away from kettles, although, if I know my family, a lot of teas will have been consumed during this discovery. Pritchard-lore states our next innovator discovered a gene which could be an early indicator for cancer and might lead to a possible cure for those with the gene. This breakthrough was allegedly made during a summer holiday job at a lab between leaving school and going to uni. I was working as a karaoke machine demonstrator in Hamleys at that time, so, same!

Does this one count as an invention? I say yes. Whether defined as invention or not, it’s pretty flipping powerful, and it really does put some of the others in our family TO SHAME!! Does your kettle cure cancer? Nope? Well keep inventing then mate…

Invention 4: The First Pacemaker

One family member was on the team who invented, created and built the first ever pacemaker which could be implanted into a human! And just like this Pritchard, it’s got great rhythm.

Cancer: Cured
Heart Disease: We can fight it!

Invention 5: The First Foetal Heart Monitor

That very same Pritchard was also involved in the invention, creation and building of the first ever foetal heart monitor! This then went on to save my life when I was born with some extra pizzazz in my heart rhythms (just call me Liberace)! Thanks, genius Pritch!

Cancer: Cured
Heart Disease: We can fight it!
Babies: We got you, bab xoxo
Everyone else: Cup of tea?

And me? Well, what can I say? I invented playing Kazoo, Recorder, and Slide Whistle at the same time

Look, I’m not saying I’ve contributed to the family inventions list in a stunning and dazzling way. This contribution is more subtle, but no less magical. I’m also not even saying that I’ve researched if I am even the first to play these three wind instruments at once, but I assume so because, well, who else and why? But I think we can all agree that this invention was a vital and necessary one, and one which the history books will remember for years to come.

So, there we have it – my contribution to the Pritchard family inventions list. And which one has saved more lives? Well, they say laughter is the best medicine, but ‘they’ aren’t doctors. So, I think we all know the answer: it’s the pacemaker. But NEVERTHELESS, what is more powerful than taking three instruments that are supposed to be played separately and blowing them simultaneously to create what can only be described as sound? That’s airpower the military wishes it could harness.

Katie Pritchard is Sir Elton Scone is running at Hoots @ Nicholson Square (Nic 5) from Aug 7-30th (except 18th) at 15:40. Tickets here