DIVA sat down with the actor and comedian to find out more about her new show Big, If True
BY ELLA GAUC, IMAGE BY MATT STRONGE
Courtney Buchner is ready to return to the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe with Big, If True — a chaotic, hilarious, and heartfelt show exploring truth, storytelling and oversharing. Blending stand-up, theatre, and queer absurdism, it questions memory, honesty and connection. Following a 2024 sell-out run and viral success, this genre-defying hour is unmissable.
DIVA sat down with this exciting new voice in comedy to find out more about Big, If True.
Your show’s all about truth, lies, and the stories we tell. Why did you want to dig into that theme?
Oh, it actually started because my fiancée and I were playing a card game! In the game, you pull a card and it has quite intimate and tough questions on it and then you win by being honest.
She pulled a card that asked, “Do you think you communicate well?” I boldly said, “Absolutely, I communicate all the time.” Without missing a beat, Maddy just asked me “But are you honest when you communicate?” and I had this crushing realisation that I use a lot of words but I don’t use them honestly.
After that realisation, I just kept digging and digging into why that was. Was it because I felt honesty upset people around me? Was it because I wasn’t honest with myself? Or was it because I was taught that honesty and love can’t really exist?
That’s where it all began and it’s been an absolute joy unearthing a lot of answers and more questions since then (both in the show and my therapy sessions – shout out Sally, my therapist!).
There’s a story in the show about carrying your friend’s poo in a Sainsbury’s bag… How do you decide what’s too much to share on stage?
Honestly, I think my line for knowing when something is too much has become invisible.
I am fairly bold with sharing my stories and that largely comes from the belief that if it gets a laugh then it’s never too much. What’s been interesting in this show is that there is a bit more of a vulnerable side to it and weirdly (though probably not unsurprisingly) that is where I start to think “Oh god is this too much?” Oversharing and being rewarded with laughter feels comfortable to me (although if no one laughs I do want to crawl into a ball) but I’m so excited to push that line a little in the more vulnerable sections as well.
You mix stand-up, theatre, audience interaction, and queer absurdism. How would you describe the vibe of Big, If True to someone who’s never seen you before?
A 60-minute, fast-paced stand-up show with stellar storytelling power that blurs the line between radical honesty and bold-faced lies. A beautiful blending of craft and humour inspired by the likes of Hannah Gadsby, Ashley Gavin and Alice Fraser.
Big, If True is a show that will have you questioning whether to laugh out loud or gasp in horror with a subtle narrative woven throughout about the fear of being unlikeable. Its truly chaotic and unpredictable stories will leave you questioning your own understanding of truth, honesty and lies and make you question every narrator ever.
With millions of views online and a sold-out run in 2024, what do you hope audiences take away from this new show?
Ideally, I’d also want audiences to leave wetting themselves with laughter. Is that too much to ask? (I’d recommend bringing a spare pair of pants).
I think the joy of live performance is that each audience might take away something different each night. Posting online is so different to performing live because as a performer you get to respond in real time to the audience’s reaction and then make different choices about what elements to push or to potentially alter as you go! I hope that audiences who might have found my online content get to see a different side of me. Online content is condensed often to 10-second videos with punchlines that neatly tie everything together. This show allows more time for nuance to be added to those punchlines and I hope it gives them more of an insight into the full picture of who I am.
What message do you have for the LGBTQIA+ community coming to the Fringe this year?
It sounds simple but let’s keep making art. You can’t be it if you can’t see it.
The thing that I am so passionate about is having our stories on stage and screen and not just our stories about coming out or realising we were LGBTQIA+ but our everyday stories of life and love and spilling coffee on your favourite shirt and missing your bus in the morning. We have so many stories to tell and I am so passionate that we deserve to tell stories about every single aspect of our life.
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