We caught up with Ioana for a chat.<\/p>\n
![\"Promotional](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9ffe3a1a-ef66-4ea8-9580-0b3d1e3859205279393569594454480.png\")
<\/p>\n
Your show is about \u201cone woman and a Furby\u201d. Without spoiling too much, what can audiences expect?<\/strong><\/p>\n If I achieve my aim, what people can expect is to feel seen and understood. There will be media projections, voice-overs, laughter, tears, and healthy amount of swearing, sprinkled\u00a0with a bit of blasphemy.<\/p>\n The character in\u00a0Goodness Me\u00a0is a millennial grappling with adulthood. Personal experience or with anyone in mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s definitely a mix of both \u2013 I had the idea for this show floating around in my head for a few years, and I couldn\u2019t figure out how to put it on paper until last year. I now believe it just wasn\u2019t the right time for it before. <\/p>\n I was 29 and going through a big existential crisis about what my life looked like and where I was heading, the play is not autobiographical, but I wrote what I felt I needed to hear.\u00a0 <\/p>\n I wrote it as a love letter to anyone who has ever felt behind, lost, alone, who has ever cried in a bathroom stall on their lunch break, and then got on with their day.\u00a0<\/p>\n How did you get your start in theatre? Do you find Fringe festivals inspiring?<\/strong><\/p>\n I moved from Romania to London in 2014 to pursue acting training and a career in the industry. I did an acting foundation course at ArtsEd, then a BA in Acting for Stage and Media at the London College of Music. <\/p>\n For my dissertation I had to produce a show, I\u00a0chose to write a play rather than do an adaptation, that was the first play I ever wrote, in 2018,\u00a0Love (to) Bits.\u00a0<\/p>\n With it I was nominated for the\u00a0Best of the Fest\u00a0award and won the\u00a0B. Fest Brighton Fringe\u00a0award the same year, as part of the International Youth Arts Festival (currently known as Fuse International Festival), which meant I got to participate in the Brighton Fringe for free the following year. <\/p>\n The day I got the phone call about that award remains one of the happiest in my life. It was incredible. That\u2019s how I got my start in theatre and when I decided I had to attend the Edinburgh\u00a0Fringe at least once in my life. <\/p>\n I absolutely love Fringe festivals and I think they can be a great platform for people to showcase their talent, present themselves to new audiences and make a name for themselves, but, unfortunately, they have become increasingly more inaccessible in terms of costs. <\/p>\n That\u2019s why I see attending the Edinburgh Fringe as a bucket list experience for\u00a0myself\u00a0as an artist, but I am not sure how feasible it is to do it more than once. <\/p>\n We\u2019ll see how it goes after my Edinburgh Fringe debut this year.<\/p>\n What are you looking forward to the most at Edinburgh?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are\u00a0two things I am very excited about: <\/p>\n 1) Getting to perform my show every day for nearly a month. I love performing from the bottom of my heart and, as an emerging artist, sometimes it can be quite a long time between opportunities\u00a0to perform\u00a0a show for such a prolonged period of time. I love to see how a show grows and changes with every performance. <\/p>\n 2) Being surrounded by a sea of like-minded creatives fully committed to their work, and watching as many shows as I possibly can from other artists, so I can discover new performers and ideas I maybe haven\u2019t seen on stage before.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where can we see your work after Fringe?<\/strong><\/p>\n At the moment I know for sure I will be acting in\u00a0The Bald Prima Donna\u00a0by Eug\u00e8ne Ionesco from the 23rd to the 27th of September at Barons Court Theatre in London. <\/p>\n After that, I am aiming to transfer\u00a0Goodness Me\u00a0to a London venue and organise a UK or international tour for it, but all of that is very much in the planning and hoping stage. <\/p>\n The best way for people to keep up to date with my work is by following\u00a0@joan_of_all_trades<\/a> on Instagram, and\u00a0@joan.of.all.trades on TikTok \u2013 I am yet to start posting on the latter, but I promise I will soon!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\tLike this:<\/p>\n Like Loading…<\/p>\n