”Messy, alive, and sometimes a bit gross, but in a good way!” – Katy Baird tells us about her show Get Off
25.7.2025
Katy Baird is a queer legend with Scottish roots. She works as an actor, activist and curator. Additionally, she has worked with students of art, and she is currently an artistic director in a Hastings-based art organisation. Her pieces are moving, radical, loving, funny – sometimes all at once. Now she is bringing her show Get Off to Tampere Theatre festival.
We asked her a few questions to get to know and her show. Katy talked about her inspiration behind Get Off, and about how she ended up discussing the ways in which humans spend their time.
”I made Get Off while trying to work out how we're all surviving day to day without completely losing it. I was thinking about how we're constantly chasing something to feel something - stimulation, distraction, validation. Get Off is like a night out with your best mates with loud music, bad behaviour and no one pretending to have it all together. It's part rave, part confessional, part public meltdown. It's messy, alive, and sometimes a bit gross, but in a good way!”
Katy worked with a direector for the first time. The director Kim Noble brought trust and clarity into the creative process.
”Working with Kim Noble has been really great. When I first approached him, I said I wanted to take my work to the next level and he totally got it and because he believed I could do it, I started to believe it too. We built the show through a lot of conversation and trust. Having someone else in the room helped stop me spiralling so much and shaped all the mad ideas I had into something people could actually follow. Even though I'm a solo artist, this isn't a solo piece. I've worked with an incredible creative team, and that collaboration is at the heart of the show.”
Shared experiences with the audience
Katy is known for her raw, open and honest performances. But she does mention holding onto boundaries, even though she shares a lot with her audience.
”It's really important to only share what you want to share. I'm not interested in shock for shock's sake. I'm interested in what happens when you tell the truth, not the polished and heavily curated version we post online but something closer to real life. That said, I'm not making work to trauma-dump or perform pain. It's not therapy! I also think Get Off reflects queer life and how important joy and connection really is, especially now, with so much that's genuinely disgusting going on in the world.”
Katy also loves post-show conversations with her audience. She remembers one memorable exchange.
”Someone once told me that every time they go for a shit now, they think of my show. I love that because it means something stuck (hopefully not literally), and maybe now, in that little private moment, they're also thinking about shame, about their body, about why we're taught to hide the mess and who gets to decide what is and isn't OK, and what is beautiful and what is not. Get Off holds a lot of real-life stuff: the fun, the contradictions, the chaos. It's a space where feelings can sit next to each other without needing to be resolved.”
Katy has performed in Finland before, so naturally we wanted to know what her favourite thing about visiting and performing here is.
”This is my first time performing a solo show in Finland, so I'm really excited to see how Get Off lands. Every audience is different, they laugh at different moments, and that's part of the fun. I'm also taking a few days off after the show to explore. The landscape looks stunning, and I plan to spend as much time in saunas as possible!”
Get Off -performances:
Mon Aug 4 at 19.00 & Tue Aug 5 at 16.30 | Duration 1h | TT Frenckell | Performed in English, subtitled in Finnish and English | Age recommendation 18+
Interview and article by: Elli Suomela