“I can’t do all the things that a regular 22 year old would do,” says Emily Ashmore, who has been suffering from moderate to severe knee displacements since her adolescent years.
The medical condition, which has yet to be diagnosed by her GP, has left the stand-up comedian at risk of dislocating either one of her kneecaps during the most mundane life activities, such as shopping. “The problem that I have is that my kneecaps just dislocate at random all the time. So I’d be doing any regular task and then I would just have a backwards leg like a Barbie doll — it’s just on backwards. It first came about when I was 15 or 16, so that was kind of the first time that it ever happened, and then it hasn’t really stopped happening since then.”
The Meath-based woman, who underwent surgery on her left knee in November 2021, says the lack of clarity around her joints has her in a grey area where she feels she is missing out on a lot of important milestones in life. “I am very much not able to do a lot of things, I’m just kind of living with it,” she says. “I don’t qualify for a bus pass, but I also can’t drive a car and I can’t cycle a bike. I can’t do all these things, like I can’t stand for longer than a half-hour. It’s a funny one because you feel like you’re floating in this in-between zone.”
Despite her ongoing medical issue and inability to engage in certain life activities, Emily found her strength in stand-up comedy, an area that first sparked her interest six years ago.
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The novelty of me being 19 doing stand-up and being a girl was definitely championed by some of the bookers
“My dad was a huge Billy Connolly fan when I was growing up. But when I was 16, I randomly got into UK panel shows and political shows. My absolute hero is James Acaster, so I stumbled upon him around that time as well. He had this joke back in the day about apricots and as soon as I heard it I was like, ‘My brain works like his brain, I want to do what he does’.”
True to her word, Ashmore embarked on her comedy journey in 2019 and her career moved in an upward trajectory after she was crowned the winner of the inaugural Cherry Comedy Breakout Act of the Year competition that same year. “I think the novelty of me being 19 doing stand-up and being a girl was definitely championed by some of the bookers, so I got a lot of gigs back to back to back,” she says, “then the pandemic hit and my knees took a bit of a bad turn.”
While there was an inevitable pause to her comedy endeavours due to Covid-19 and her recurring knee problems, Ashmore took the time to write Ashes to Ashmore, a story of perseverance even in the most unusual circumstances. “In the pandemic, I was obviously sitting down with the knees a lot of the time, I went in for the surgery and that was all kind of happening so I just decided to write the show because I didn’t have regular gigs to go and exercise that comedy muscle, so I just decided to put my energy into writing and getting a show together,” she says.
The comic, who will be performing Ashes to Ashmore at the Dublin Fringe Festival in September, also says she tries to live her life “as much as possible” as she doesn’t want her undiagnosed medical concerns to define her life.
At the beginning, I definitely hid the knees from my comedy. I never spoke about it, never addressed it
“The reason I wrote the show and the message that I’m trying to get across with it is that despite this kind of dodgy knee thing that has been following me around since I was 16, I just try to make the most of it and not let it kind of impact my life as much as possible,” says the comic.
“If I have to sit down every 30 minutes, I will still get back up, I just try not to say no to things because of [my] knees, like concerts, festivals, things like that,” says Ashmore, “so my goal is just to try not to let them dictate my life because I might have the knees of an 80 year old, but I don’t have to live the life of an 80 year old.”
Speaking on how her knee problems impacted being a stand-up comic, Ashmore says it was something she hid from the audience and her fellow comedy peers before coming to terms with it.
“At the beginning, I definitely hid the knees from my comedy,” she says. “I never spoke about it, never addressed it. Nothing. A lot of the time I’d be on crutches, I would throw my crutches to my boyfriend and just hobble on to the stage to try and make it look as normal as possible, nobody was to know.”
My hope is to just be the best comedian that I can and go as far as my knees will take me
“Eventually, I just decided to kind of reclaim it and just be like, ‘No, this is a huge part of me, this is who I am. I can make it funny. I find it funny’, and I just thought it was a funny situation,” she says.
“So despite kind of feeling a little bit vulnerable and feeling that it would make me look vulnerable, I just decided to reclaim it and tell my story 100 per cent in my own words, and that was kind of how [the] Ashes to Ashmore show even came about because I just decided that I decide what makes me strong,” she adds.
The 22 year old says she recognises the homebred talent among her fellow women comedians and she hopes to always put her best foot forward by being the best possible version of herself.
“There’s so many amazing female trailblazer comedians right now absolutely knocking it out of the water, so my hope is to just be the best comedian that I can and go as far as my knees will take me.”
- Ashes to Ashmore premieres at the The Workman’s Club (The Vintage Room) as part of Dublin Fringe Festival (September 12th-22nd)