Testing the boundaries of the socially acceptable, whilst bringing you outlandish performances that engage you if you’re willing to be engaged, Scottee talks to us about life as a performer. Talk to me about Violence… 
Violence is a new performance piece devised by my company Eat Your Heart Out, it explores the on stage performers experience with Violence in London (pre and post riots).

We’re working on the show at the moment that opens next week, so far it contains lots of JD Sports bags and a healthy amount of fake blood.

How do people react to your performances?
Mixed, I never like to pre-think what I want them to think. Some people are annoyed and walk out but others see the fact I am satirical, provocative and push the buttons on purpose.
I like to make an audience feel like we are having an informal chat that could go either way, a lot of producers comment that it is unnerving sitting in one of my audiences as you don’t know what I’m going to do next.

On Facebook you’ve listed yourself as being a ‘performer and fatty’, how important is your physical appearance in what you do?
Very, its not just my physical appearance its more political. At school or even in adult life being fat is used against you, as soon as you disarm the haters with identifying with the slur they can’t use it against you.
Being fat has also been everything I’ve known, I love it and it loves me.

You’ll pop your tits with scissors in front of people amongst other obscure things, times change, and public desensitisation is a common subject these days. How do you think society is changing its views on the acceptability of things we see?
Again I don’t devise work thinking “oh that’ll challenge” – that piece is about my own Mothers self harm and her relationship with alcohol. I think we are becoming more accepting of challenging imagery in the media, dead bodies seem to be common place. As long as the work isn’t at the detriment of others and has a strong politic or idea I’m ok with it. Last year after seeing Kim Nobles show ‘Kim Noble Will Die For You’ in which he gives his spunk to young women in the audience, gave his ex girlfriends telephone number out with instruction to insult and threw money at black people I was left with the same troubling questions – is this progressive? Is this acceptable? There is this recent trend is fucking off your audience (Romeo Castellucci’s ‘On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God’, Ontroerend Goed’s ‘Audience’) as some sort of artistic statement or radical engagement that is seen as revolutionary or forward thinking, I think its basic, juvenile, cheap and lazy. Throwing images at me of dead human beings is like Noble throwing a strop because I won’t leave his auditorium when he is supposedly “kicking me out of the show”.

Leave your audience empowered.

If you could bring someone famous back from the dead, who’d it be?
Hattie Jacques – she’s just such a wonderful performer who lived life in the chud lane but that never held her back.

You’ve been shaped by your past and your upbringing, which is evident in what you do. Can you predict where you’re going from here?
Indeed I have. I still live in a council flat, I’m still common but I don’t plan to do a Guy Richie and pretend I’m down with the kids when I’m a bit further up the showbiz food chain. Your beginning will always inform you.

What does it feel like when you’re performing?
Like everyone really wants to hear what you have to say, after those moments you can only cross your fingers. It’s also the worse drug in the world, you have an amazing high but 3 mins after the show when they have stopped clapping and going home you wonder what it was all for.

What can we expect from you in the future?
Violence at Riverside Studio from 17th – 25th and Duckie’s Copyright Christmas in the Barbican Main House form 10th December.