Her one-woman show Main Character Energy has been a long time coming, with the writer-performer trying drag, standup and clowning to find her funny voice. ‘You have to put yourself in the limelight,’ she says

The seed of actor and writer Temi Wilkey’s new one-woman show was planted when she saw a photo of herself dancing at an east London party. As she recreates it for me, she throws her arm up and adopts a model-esque expression, personifying, as a friend described it, “main character energy”. “I felt very empowered by her saying that, like: Is this how people could see me? Is this who I actually am?”

Main Character Energy became her show’s title, long before it was written. “Not to compare myself to Charli xcx,” she laughs, “but it makes me think about Brat, because she didn’t write any of the music until she’d come up with a name. It was a guiding principle, like: is that brat?”