Next in our Edinburgh Fringe interview series, we speak to Tom Nemec about bringing his deeply personal solo show A Cat In A Box to the festival. The show is described as: “A deeply personal solo play that tells a story everyone can relate to. Through darkly humorous and dramatic monologues, Tom explores love, loss and hope growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family, showing how trauma shapes our lives.”
How would you describe your show to someone discovering it for the first time at the Fringe?
A Cat in a Box is an autobiographical solo play about growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family and what you carry from that. It’s personal, darkly funny, painful in places, but also full of survival. It’s not a stand-up comedy show. It’s a play about childhood, memory, grief, recovery, and finally giving a voice to the kid who didn’t have one then.
What moment, idea or frustration first sparked this show into existence?
This is a story I wanted to tell my entire life. In 2012, something happened that finally pushed me toward telling it, but it still took several years to find the confidence, courage, and belief that my story was important enough to put onstage. I had worked for many years on and off as a stand-up comedian and actor, but I knew I didn’t want this to be just a collection of memories. I wanted it to become theatre — relatable, understandable, engaging, entertaining, heartfelt, and passionate.
How has the show evolved from its earliest idea to what audiences will see now?
The earliest idea was more like separate monologues built around different memories from my dysfunctional childhood and how those experiences affected other parts of my life. Over time, it became much more focused. I learned how much care it takes to turn personal material into a real play. There are so many things that are part of my story and happened in my life, but not all of them helped me drive this particular play forward.
I worked painstakingly to make the show clear and theatrical without making it false. The show is grounded in my real experience. I didn’t add stories or invent things to make it more dramatic — though there is one moment where I imagine my Evel Knievel doll coming to life. That’s there because it shows how a kid’s imagination can become part of how he survives what’s happening around him.
What makes Edinburgh Fringe the right place for this show right now?
The Fringe feels like the right place because people go there looking for shows. They’re not just killing time. They’re there to discover things and take chances on work they might not normally see. I think A Cat in a Box belongs at Edinburgh because the Fringe makes room for personal, honest, risk-taking work. The show reaches people. Audiences connect with it, and people tell me how much it resonates with them.
What does bringing this particular show to the Fringe represent for you personally?
I’m 60 now, and part of what I wanted was to finally give that 10-year-old boy the voice he didn’t have then. Bringing this show to Edinburgh represents a lot for me. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a child — and something I needed to do. I’m proud of the piece I’m bringing.
What has been the most unexpectedly challenging part of getting this show to Edinburgh?
The producing side. You imagine the hard part will be the writing or performing, and those are hard. But getting a show to Edinburgh also means dealing with money, flights, lodging, posters, flyers, tech, promotion, press, and trying to get people into the room. I’m producing the show myself, so there’s a lot to carry. But underneath all that, it still comes down to the same thing: get in a room with people and tell the story.
If audiences leave the venue holding onto one thing, what do you hope it is?
They will leave feeling that what happened to them matters, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the story. The show is not about self-pity. It asks hard questions and gives some hard answers. I think part of the release comes from realizing you’re not alone. People may not have lived my exact life, but they can recognize something of their own in it. In some ways, it reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I like to think I’m bringing people into the light.
How do you think performing this show during a Fringe run will shape it?
A solo show changes once there are people in the room. You feel where they’re with you, where they laugh, where they get quiet, and where the story lands. Doing it at the Fringe will sharpen that even more. Different audiences, day after day, will teach me things about the show that I can’t learn alone with the script.
Who do you hope this show finds at the Fringe?
I hope it finds people who grew up in families where things were not talked about. People who were children in rooms where they had no power. People who have carried things for a long time and are still trying to make sense of them. I also hope it finds people who just love honest solo theatre. You don’t need to have had my life to understand the show. You just need to know what it feels like to remember something, survive something, and try to turn it into meaning.
Finally, if this show came with a warning label, what would it say?
Warning: contains childhood, alcohol, grief, uncomfortable laughter, one imaginary Evel Knievel doll, and a grown man finally saying what he couldn’t say when he was ten.
A Cat In The Box runs at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 7th-15th August 2026.