IT GIRLS: How singer-songwriters inspired Temi Wilkey’s Main Character Energy
Image: Jade Ang Jackman
By Temi Wilkey
Comedian Caleb Hearon said on the Keeping Records podcast: ‘All comedians secretly want to be singer-songwriters.’ I, in turn, have often said that creating my solo show Main Character Energy was my way of coming out to myself as someone who secretly wanted to be a comedian!
And nothing influenced the making of that show more than the radical self indulgence of modern singer-songwriters. I’m not just talking about the show’s soundtrack which is truly jam packed with big tune bangers. No, I’m talking about the unspoken influence made on the show by the music industry’s IT Girls.
I’m talking about the hyper-cinematic string orchestration of RAYE’S Oscar Winning Tears, the emotionally raw and deeply playful lyricism of Doechii’s DENIAL IS A RIVER and the utterly deranged theatrical pop production of JADE’s Angel of my Dreams. Listening to these anthems helped me to rise out of my shell like the birth of Venus. It influenced the creation of my onstage persona and made me become something I’d never been before: a diva.
Main Character Energy is all about a beautiful black actress who decides to create her own one woman show to take up the onstage space she’s been routinely denied. It’s a “play”, a satirical take on the one woman show where the version of myself that I play is larger than life. Just like JADE playing heightened versions of herself in the Angel of my Dreams video, Main Character Energy helped me create my own absurdist self mythology.
Artists like JADE, RAYE, Charli XCX and Doechii have gotten messy and personal in their music, embracing their stories and facing their own flaws by creating sonic self-portraits. The self-renderings in their music are powerful because they’re personal. They seem to care less about maintaining artistic mystique and more about getting up close and very personal – canonising themselves through telling their own stories, on their own terms.
When RAYE and Doechii share the troubles they’ve had with their labels or when JADE and Charli share the emotional tolls that fame has had on their psyches they’re connecting us to their personal stories as well as their lyrics. You’d think this wouldn’t be relatable but their honesty is everything.
It’s Main Character music and I think that’s why their latest work has struck so many chords. Main Character Energy was the first time I’d put myself in the centre of my work. I’d written plays and eps for TV before but I’d never been brave enough to write something for myself to perform. But, inspired by these singer-songwriters, I found my own voice as a writer/performer. And… that led me to comedy. Maybe it’s because of the deep connection that Caleb Hearon thinks comics have to singer-songwriters. We’re all trying to share our stories – through laughter or through song.
Live comedy feels like a way of sharing a live memoir, to make sense of a life through laughter. This memoir has a lot of masturbation in it, dance floor hits and the rise of an absurd but powerful diva. I think it’d make the IT Girls proud.
Temi Wilkey’s Main Character Energy will be on tour from October 6th, starting at Bristol Old Vic (Oct 6-11th), Chichester Festival Theatre, The Nest (November 21-22nd) and Sheffield Theatres (Nov 28-29th).
There will be a BLACK OUT night on Oct 9th for Black-identifying audiences, and a post-show discussion with performance artist, theatre-maker and writer Travis Alabanza.
