For Debra Tammer, making people laugh has always been a way of coping with the feeling of being an outsider. "My trauma, your joy - that’s my shtick,” she says. Now 51, the actor, writer and comedian has channelled that talent into Extraordinary Alien, a deeply personal one-woman show about identity, immigration, motherhood and being a Jew.
Opening at the Edinburgh Fringe on August 24 – “fashionably late,” as she describes it – the show has already picked up several five-star reviews. Tammer takes the audience through her Jewish upbringing in Leeds and her family’s move from London to New York, as well as her transformation from actor to stand-up comedian.
This is not traditional stand-up. There are photographs, voiceovers, music and an alien mask. Her three daughters feature heavily, and she even reads out her mother’s unintentionally hilarious “novel-like” texts. It’s an exploration of her identity, “almost like me coming out,” and nothing is off limits.
The show’s title comes directly from the text of an American immigration visa.
When Tammer’s husband moved jobs while the family were living in the US, her status changed overnight. Suddenly, she found herself no longer legally able to work. "I went from being a celebrated New York comedian, to illegal immigrant in 24 hours,” she recalls.“I had to apply for another visa, as an ‘alien of extraordinary ability’. I thought it was such a funny title, and it lodged itself in my head for a few years.”
Tammer realised that throughout her life, she had repeatedly had to prove that she belonged, especially as a Jew. She grew up United Synagogue-observant and attended a Jewish school until she was 13. But when she took the 11-plus and was interviewed for a place at a grammar school, she experienced her first taste of antisemitism. Three Jewish girls applied that year, she says, all of whom, herself included, ended up at Oxbridge; none was accepted by the school.
During her interview, she recalls being asked if she attended a particular drama class, which took place on a Saturday morning. “I said, ‘No I go on Thursdays after school.’ Then the woman went, ‘Oh, yes, of course, I forgot. You’re Jewish, aren’t you?’ She used such a weird tone of voice and the whole energy shifted in the room. There was a definite quota going on at that particular time.”
Later, at her local state secondary school, she learned to use humour as a shield against antisemitism. “Being tough and having a quick mouth was how I got by,” she says. “I remember, once, I was in the library and a boy spat at me from the top of a bookcase. He said, ‘Oi, Jew.’”
Her quick reaction is now a line in her show: “Luckily, my Jewfro absorbed most of the impact.”
She admits to being “mouthy”. During the recent Gaza protests, she confronted a woman who told her to “go back to where I came from”: Tammer turned to her and said, “What, Leeds? And then I gave her a little bit of history. I don’t get into fights as such, but I do have a sense of humour.”
A born performer, Tammer first appeared on stage at the age of three. She was supposed to be singing with a choir, but instead pulled faces, making the audience laugh. And then, she says, “I became aware of everyone laughing, and I was embarrassed, and I just burst into tears and wet myself. I ended up standing there in a puddle of my own urine. Which is now pretty much my opening line. I joke that as I’m perimenopausal, it might happen again tonight. Pelvic floor problems help me bond with the women in the audience.”
She decided she wanted to be an actor at the age of five, making her first TV appearance as a child in Emmerdale. The production was looking for Jewish actors for a synagogue scene, and she was chosen. “I was lighting a chanukiah, just being a Jew,’ she says. “The footage may still exist somewhere, although my brother has probably taped over it with cricket.”
While she dreamt of going to drama school, her parents wanted her to become a barrister. She compromised, taking an English degree at Oxford and then enrolling at LAMDA. Roles in shows such as Fat Friends and Suzie Gold followed, and she toured with the English Shakespeare Company.
Tammer moved with her family to New York in 2019, when her husband was offered a job running a streaming service. She had always dreamed of living there. When Covid arrived soon after, it was isolating, but also gave her the time and space to write. She took a course in stand-up and threw herself into comedy, running club nights as well as performing. “I discovered it was quite therapeutic, to stop hiding behind a character, just to get on stage and say what’s going on, and tell them another funny story that happened to me.”
Being in New York also changed her relationship with her Jewish identity. It was a place she felt she could finally stop explaining herself. “It’s just unbelievable, the Jewishness of that city. I came out as a Jew when I was in New York.”
Although she had always attended shul, as a feminist Tammer had found it difficult to sit quietly in the ladies gallery during services. In the Big Apple, she also found her place within the more egalitarian communities, where women can take a bigger, active role in the synagogue.
The family moved back to London in 2023, following on the heels of their eldest daughter, who hadn’t settled well in New York. Since then, Tammer has been based between the two cities, commuting back and forth, first monthly and now quarterly.
Taking a show rooted in her Jewish identity to the Edinburgh Festival this summer has not been without anxiety. She was deeply affected by the discrimination and hostility encountered last year by her fellow Jewish performers, including her friend Rachel Creeger. “I remember crying on a plane when I heard about it,” she says. “I was just so shocked and saddened and disgusted. It wasn’t just them. It could easily have been any of us. I was so happy to hear Phillip Simon had won his case against the venue which cancelled his show.
“When I was asked to perform this year, I was like, do I want to open myself up to that sort of abuse? But I do want to be honest and talk about my Jewish identity. I’m all about facing the fear and doing it anyway.”
Extraordinary Alien is on at Shanghai at Le Monde in Edinburgh, from 24th to 30th August 24 to August 30 at 2.30pm
www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/extraordinary-alien
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