Kate-Lois Elliott is Trad (WIP) at The Bill Murray
After the success of our 2025 campaign featuring many Camden Fringe shows, we thought it only right to attempt a repeat it for 2026. So every day of July we’ll be publishing new interviews to give a taste of what to expect from London’s best fringe theatre festival. With the festival itself starting on Monday 3 August, it hopefully gives us two days off between interviews and reviews, but then again, we’re sure we will find other things needing to be done on those days!
You can find out more about Camden Fringe, along with details of every show playing this August here. You can also find all of this year’s interviews as they are published here.
As subcultures like “Tradwifedom” take over social media feeds with glossy videos of 1950s homemaking and bread-making from scratch, comedian and performer Kate-Lois Elliott found herself trapped in a late-night TikTok scroll asking one fundamental question: Why?
Fresh off her acclaimed work exploring cults, Elliott brings her brand-new work-in-progress show, Trad (WIP), to The Bill Murray for this year’s Camden Fringe. Blending her West End musical roots with sharp stand-up, a projector, a guitar, and an unexpected abundance of props, the show is a brilliant, music-filled dissection of modern nostalgia, fertility, monogamy, and the seductive, yet often toxic, fantasy of “having it all.”
We caught up with Kate-Lois to talk about her “eureka moment” in the bathtub, why 2026 is the crucial time to have this conversation, and how she managed to sneak a whole theatre’s worth of props into a fringe comedy set.
If you had to describe the vibe of your show in just one sentence, what would it be and how does it manifest on stage?
A new show about nostalgia, fertility, modern monogamy, and the seductive fantasy of ‘having it all’ – from TikTok Tradwives to medieval kinks, to Queen Victoria’s lethal plumbing.
Why is 2026 the perfect time for this show to be seen?
The conversation around a woman’s place is becoming ubiquitous once again, with subcultures like Tradwifedom – social media influencers peddling anything from replicating a 1950s housewife lifestyle to submitting your free will to your husband – becoming more normalised. This show explores why people are being drawn backwards to outdated ideals and whether the world we live in is to blame.
What was the ‘eureka moment’ that made you realise this story had to be told right now?
This January, I found myself in the bath for the third time that week, watching Tradwife videos on TikTok, and suddenly thinking: why? Nothing about my life resembles that of a tradwife, but lately I’ve caught myself wanting to grow things in the garden, bake bread from scratch, care a little less about work. Some of it is probably just getting older.
But I know I’m not the only person my age inexplicably obsessed with accounts like Ballerina Farm – even though we know there’s very little reality in what they’re selling, and, for the most part, we fundamentally disagree with everything they stand for. I realised there must be something I was missing, so I decided to write a show to figure it out…
Is this version how you originally envisioned it or has it changed drastically since you first put pen to paper?
I’ve performed professionally as a singer in theatre, including the West End, but I was always too afraid to write my own stuff. About six months ago, I’d never even written a single song before (not for lack of trying). Since then, I’ve been working with the amazing Kate Pritchard to put music to my ramblings, and it’s been such a treat. I don’t think I could do a show without songs now.
Being fringe and a festival, we all know sets have to be bare minimum, how have you got around this with your set and props?
It’s funny you should ask that! Obviously it’s standup, so I guess you’d expect the set and props situation to be minimal. In my last show about cults, I had a wooden box and a few pens (my church suggestions box) and that was it.
This time, I’ve called on my theatre roots and filled the show with props, costumes, a projector and a guitar. It’s very different from my last two shows but, in a way, much more me. It’s almost become a game to see how many of them I can fit in. This is obviously the Fringe version and not the tour version, so we have be realistic. I tried to add a giant industrial hand-operated fan, and my producer told me I had to send it back.
If you had to describe your show as a meal what would it be, and why?
Sourdough bread, with a viral instructional video to go with it.
What’s the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received during your career, and how has it influenced your work on this show?
I got to work with one of my theatre heroes not long after graduating drama school, and at the end of the show, he told me, ‘This industry isn’t loyal, but just keep going.’ I think about that a lot because it reminds me not to expect anything from anyone, and to just do the work because I love it. When I stop loving it, I’ll go work in finance.
Many thanks to Kate-Lois for the chat. Trad will play at The Bill Murray on Sunday 9 August. You can find our more about Kate-Lois on her website here.
