Edinburgh Fringe: TikTok gave me the confidence to perform

TikTok bosses noticed many people like Courtney trying to take their comedy from feeds to theatres this year and the platform has been announced as a sponsor of the festival.

Courtney has had more than a million likes on her TikTok videos, which often include sketches around women’s football.

She didn’t expect to be at this year’s festival but when a slot opened up, she threw herself in.

“Now I’m ready to say to an audience: ‘I’m opening this up to you and to live reactions’.

“Rather than having a reaction in your room, and I don’t get to see it, and you might not like it, and just swipe by,” she says.

Although Courtney says it’s not something she’s personally experienced, she knows there can be some snobbery about performers who’ve cut their teeth online rather than honing their craft in the “real world”.

“There’s that feeling of insecurity that you do have something to prove, that you can move your audience from being online to being fresh and alive in a theatre space,” she says.

“You do hear things about, ‘They’re only getting X, Y and Z because of their following’.

“My answer to that is to get that following took time, patience and talent.”