WATCH: Twitter sensation Sooz Kempner goes back to her childhood memories

In 1998, Sooz got a PlayStation, a “console for the first generation of adult gamers” – at least that was how it was marketed – and she finally felt grown-up. But is she a grown-up even now? Audiences will find out in Playstation, a stand-up show exploring memories of growing up in the 90s through comedy anecdotes, song and multimedia accompaniments.

“This show is all about growing up. It looks like the show is going to be heavily based about gaming but it's much more how you feel as teenagers and young adults and it's great that people who went through that are responding to it now and also people were maybe parents of young adults and teenagers who used these games back then. I was 13 when I was given this Sony PlayStation and I thought that made me really cool. I thought I was extremely grown up but actually it's the most grown up I have ever felt and I still don't feel that I've grown up fully even though I'm now 38. The 90s were interesting. It was cool Britannia and it felt like there were going to be no great wars and it just felt like everything was solved.

“I started doing stand-up in 2009 and it's actually 14 years since my first gig. I did my first Edinburgh in 2013 and my first full run in 2014. It has been 14 years doing shows from five minutes up to full Edinburgh hours and now this is the first tour.”

It comes on the back of considerable online lockdown success: “I had a green screen which I set up from about three minutes into the pandemic and lockdowns because I thought there were bound to be a few Zoom gigs. I thought it would be good to have a nice background and I just thought it was going to be eight to ten weeks or something like that and now here we are three years later. I was doing my little videos and I'm still doing my little videos now as MPs and made-up royal correspondents. I have never tagged Nadine Dories but she has blocked me which is maybe a result!”

Throughout lockdown, Sooz went viral time and time again with a variety of online content including performances as Dories and Liz Truss, unforgettable turns such as performing Trump speeches verbatim Liza Minnelli and tales of her time as a Christina Aguilera tribute act for a company that turned out to be a money laundering operation for the Cypriot mafia.

With her viral videos entertaining millions, her Trump speeches as Liza Minnelli received coverage in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times and her Nadine and Liz videos enjoyed coverage in The Guardian, The Independent, the i Paper and The Mirror.

Inevitably the debut-tour tag now brings its own pressures: “But I'm trying not to feel it. When I did my first Edinburgh for the full hour nine years ago I went into it full of expectations but fortunately things have just kept going and maybe that has heightened my expectations for this tour, but really I just want to think that people will have a good time and come out feeling a little bit lighter by the end of it!”

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