Donna & Kebab are Martha and Eve

Donna & Kebab are Martha and Eve – A Celebration!

showing from 4-14 August (excl. 9) at 8:45pm-9:45pm

Award-winning music and comedy-duo Martha D. Lewis and Eve Polycarpou - formerly known as Donna & Kebab - are returning to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time in 20 years to celebrate their distinguished careers in a brand-new show. Donna & Kebab are Martha and Eve – A Celebration! is a nod to their past successes and stories as one of the first female British-Cypriot comedy acts, whilst bringing us up to the present day, with all that they are as writers, musicians, and performers.

The British-born Cypriot legends carved out their own distinctive place in the field of alternative comedy in the late 1980s, highlighting the experience of bi-cultural young women dealing with family pressures, subtle racist assumptions and stereotypes (before other ethnically-themed comedy sketch shows like ‘The Real Mccoy’ and ‘Goodness Gracious Me’), and the challenging sexual politics of the time as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Is this your first time at Edinburgh Fringe?

Our first Edinburgh Fringe festival performance was in 1987. We ended up winning a Time Out ‘Best Newcomers Award’ and ‘Donna & Kebab’ got picked up by the TV show ‘01 for London’. This got us a lot of exposure and really kicked things off for us. We came back subsequently, six times altogether, hence why Edinburgh Fringe feels really special. We’re thrilled to return after 20 years!

How did you first get together and what sparked your partnership?

We first met when we were hired as solo singers at Eve’s uncles’ Greek nightclub. Eve [Polycarpou] had gained attention from the talent show, New Faces and Martha [D Lewis] as part of a group for the Eurovision Song Contest. We both had performance residencies there and soon realised we had a lot in common - whilst we’re from different musical backgrounds, we connected over the music we were raised with as British-born Cypriots. We also shared very similar experiences growing up, particularly with the cultural expectations and pressures we felt from our community - how we were just expected to go from being good Greek girls to good Greek women, and then good Greek wives. As we got closer and chose to sing together more often, these shared experiences became jokes we often made, which turned into comedy sketches that we blended with the music we loved. We finally decided to perform together as ‘Donna & Kebab’ after a friend suggested we give it a try - that was 30 years ago!

What are your personal highlights from the show?

I think what we love about doing this show together is being able to combine social commentary, reflecting the things we are passionate about, and the music of our parent culture whilst celebrating our early years from the first creation of ‘Donna & Kebab’ to our journeys into our ‘Martha & Eve’ days both individually and collectively. It’s what we’ve always done, but now we’re looking at familiar characters from the community in the present and talking about current issues and topics that are important to us. How can we use our voices as women with a unique bi-cultural perspective? Getting to share that unique insight is an important part of the show for us - it’s what we’ve always done. And of course, we love to perform our original material, too. The very first song we wrote together, ‘Stay’, will always be a favourite - it still surprises us when audiences know the words!

What’s next for Martha and Eve?

The Edinburgh show is kicking off a bigger UK tour next year - that’s our main focus. But we’ve also been working with a wonderful award-winning filmmaker called Athena Mandis who is making a documentary about our ‘Donna & Kebab are Martha & Eve’ journey, which we’re incredibly excited about.

Donna & Kebab are Martha & Eve: A Celebration! will be shown at The Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 4-14 August (excl. 9) from 8.45pm - 9.45pm. Buy tickets here.