Canadian comedy duo Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram are bringing their acclaimed show Big Stuff to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, blending improvisation, storytelling and deeply personal reflections on grief. Built from their own experiences and shaped through years of collaboration, the show explores the emotional weight of the everyday objects we keep, and what they reveal about the people we’ve loved and lost.
“We met in Toronto at the legendary Second City Comedy Theatre,” Matt explains. “We created these live reviews, and it was love at first laugh in a way. We just kept gravitating toward each other and creating these relationship scenes that delved into coupledom.” Naomi adds, “The audience knew we were falling in love before we knew,” highlighting how performance and personal life became intertwined from the very beginning.
That creative partnership has expanded over the years into multiple strands. “Matt and I have two lives,” Naomi says. “We have our own careers, and then we have our thing that we do together.” It was from this shared creative strand that Big Stuff emerged. “We were doing duo stuff, live sketch shows,” Naomi continues, “and then we were like, let’s write something so we can do it again.”
The origins of the show are rooted in a period of profound loss. “We always knew we wanted to write a comedy together,” Matt says, “and at the same time, the last of our parents passed away. So here we are trying to write a comedy, and then we had to deal with this loss.” Naomi reflects candidly, “We were old orphans suddenly, and we had a lot of stuff to get through.”
That “stuff” became both the literal and thematic core of the piece. “We were left with all of the stuff that they left behind,” Matt explains, “and we realised Naomi and I have different philosophies about what to do with it.” Naomi laughs, “I keep everything, I’ll keep even all those boxes you get your iPhone in,” while Matt counters, “I throw everything away.” This dynamic tension plays out on stage, creating both humour and emotional resonance.
Audience participation is central to the show, with personal objects acting as entry points for storytelling. “We get audience members to write down what’s something in your home that reminds you of someone,” Matt says. “Then we’ll say, tell us about this.” For Naomi, these exchanges are deeply meaningful: “The nicest thing somebody asked me once was, ‘What was your father like?’ When we have these audience interactions, we also get to find out about the people attached to them.”
The result is a theatrical experience that evolves each night. “Sometimes we’ll weave those connections into our story,” Matt explains. “Every show is just a little bit different.” Naomi adds, “Somebody said they came in as strangers, but they left as friends, it’s a really lovely happening.”
Creating such a personal piece required careful navigation. “We went right into couples therapy,” Matt admits. Naomi elaborates, “We went from our first week of writing this show into couples therapy, because it was bringing up a lot of our stuff.” That honesty remains integral to the show’s impact. “We challenged each other to be very vulnerable,” Naomi says. “There were drafts that I couldn’t stop crying through, but that’s the place it lives in.”
At the same time, there is a clear responsibility to audiences. “We want to protect the audience,” Matt notes, while Naomi emphasises, “We’re not going to challenge somebody to speak, it’s really up to people as much as they want to share.” With the support of director Kat Sandler, the balance between openness and care was carefully shaped. “She protected us from oversharing,” Matt says, “and from making sure that we were protecting audience members.”
Improvisation remains a key element, even within a largely scripted framework. “It never goes in a direction we expect,” Naomi says. “Every single show, there is some sort of delightful, weird thing that happens.” Matt adds, “I think mostly the audience doesn’t know when we’re improvising,” while Naomi notes, “People think it’s mostly improvised, but it’s 99% written.”
Bringing Big Stuff to Edinburgh marks a significant milestone. “I always heard about the Edinburgh Fringe, but I was always intimidated by it,” Matt admits. Naomi shares that the festival has long been a dream: “We’ve never been, we’ve always thought, is this the show we bring?” Now, with a piece that resonates universally, the answer feels certain.
For those considering a visit, Matt describes Big Stuff as “a funny and heartfelt exploration of all of the crap that piles up in the basement of your life.” Naomi offers a more personal hook: “If you have an argument with your partner about getting rid of stuff or keeping stuff, we have the argument on your behalf, you just have to come and choose a side.”
With its mix of humour, grief and shared humanity, Big Stuff promises not only laughter, but a chance to reflect on the objects and memories that shape us all.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
