Rebecka Vilhonen
This piece forms part of our Prague Fringe 2024 Preview Series. Tickets and Listings for Shows will be available soon on the Prague Fringe Box Office Website.
My name is Rebecka Vilhonen, I am from Finland and I am a comedian. I bet a lot of you haven’t seen that many consonants in one name, and even less of you have seen the words Finland and Comedy in a sentence. But here I am, a rare, exotic, very white, and somewhat depressed flower inviting you to sniff me.
I am a Stand-Up Comedian, which means I strive in conditions that most people would describe as pure hell. I love performing in bars that smell like piss, packed with drunk people who couldn’t care less about you or your “art”. I blossom when I see the look of annoyance on people’s faces when they ask wanky questions like “What themes do you discuss in your show?” and I answer: “Farts”. That feeling of constant rejection and humiliation… That is what I look for, and it makes my haemorrhoids ache with joy.
This is where my values as a comedian lie – in being a pain in the ass and something people don’t want but they might need.
How did I manage to dig myself out of a pile of snow and end up on stage? In Finland I did not experience or have much of a concept of what Stand-Up Comedy was until I was about 18 years old, when I stumbled upon Alan Carr on YouTube. And I remember thinking two things: I would like doing that, and, would I look hot like Alan in glasses?
Then I found myself at Edinburgh Fringe, working at a Box Office, and seeing live comedy for the first time, and very much falling in love. It took a couple more years until I found the courage to try it at 27 years old. And when I did, I understood what it meant to fall in love at first sight. And I haven’t stopped, and I won’t stop. Suck it.
This is also another reason I love stand-up, the possibility for anyone to try it. The simplicity of it. There is a microphone and you have something to say, so say it. The immediate consequence and reaction to what you said. And the ridiculousness in how scary it feels and at the end of the day we are just trying to make each other laugh. It is fun, scary and unbelievably absurd, and I feel like that is life in a nutshell as well.
I started making this weird show of mine – Do I Want To Fuck My Dad? – during a break up. I started contemplating what the relationship had been like, what role I had and why it had exploded to a million pieces. And of course many things stem from our childhoods, and unsurprisingly so did my behaviour. But then at the same time I have this deep sexual desire to be dominated by men and having my ass spanked red. So basically, what is up with that? That’s the show. Added with an insane true story of a man feeding me donuts after sex.
My relationship to Prague Fringe is maybe not a typical one. During my time working at a lot of different fringe festivals I happened to find Prague Fringe. I volunteered at the festival twice and during the second time I revealed that I also do Stand-Up. This confession led me to go up on stage during the closing show for Fringe and make jokes and roast the director of Prague Fringe Steve Gove. Which somehow led to me then coming back with a show in 2022 called Sandpaper and now I am back again. This all has led me to believe that Steve also finds pleasure in being humiliated.
I am always excited to return to Prague! I live in Budapest and will travel for seven hours in a stinky Flixbus and watch the beautiful scenery of the Czech Republic go by. I will drink beer, eat poppy seed cakes and ice cream, and wonder over tourists taking selfies. I will also try to make friends with people at the Fringe, which is difficult as an anxious mess but also as a Finnish Snowman. But I will try, because life is about experiencing new shit, or whatever.
See you in Prague!
Tickets and Listings for Shows will be available soon on the Prague Fringe Box Office Website.
Photo Credit: Ádám Szalai
Jake Mace
