"raw, witty and brilliant... i'd recommend seeing her the same way a drowning human would recommend air." - praise for eating satsumas in the sun and forgetting about heartbreak (October 2024)
After a sell-out run at Lambeth Fringe 2024, writer, director, and poet Emily Layton brings her debut solo hour to the Edinburgh Fringe – and it’s personal. Eating Satsumas in the Sun and Forgetting About Heartbreak is a bold, honest, and heartwarmingly raw spoken word journey through love, loss, motherhood, and the absurd beauty of wading through life’s chaos.
From writing poetry to impress a boy (don’t we all start somewhere?) to reclaiming her voice with unapologetic emotional clarity, Emily invites audiences to sit in the sun with her — and sometimes in the mess — as she unravels everything from the heartbreaks we whisper about to the small joys that save us.
Expect wit, tears, belly laughs, and solidarity in this “gutwrenching and heartwarming” hour (audience review) from an artist “fearlessly dissecting her own heart on stage.” It’s storytelling at its most honest, wrapped in poetry that’s both lived-in and luminous.
Emily debuted at the Fringe in 2015 as a writer/director and now returns to perform for the first time with a show that’s already moved London audiences to tears.
Tickets for Eating Satsumas in the Sun and Forgetting About Heartbreak are on sale now.
Emily is a regular at Sweet Sundays, mcing and working on the welcome team on the first Sunday of every month at Hackney Old Baths. After writing poetry for nearly a decade she began sharing it both online and performing at poetry nights around London in June 2022.
Her work has been featured in the Positive Wellbeing Zine for Mums (Issue 16), The Dubble, and London Poems on the Lockdown. She has also published three collections of poetry: All these things and more (2020), You, turning silence into gold (2021) and Eating Satsumas in the Sun and Forgetting About Heartbreak (2022).
In October 2024, Emily's sold-out poetry show 'Eating Satsumas in the Sun and Forgetting About Heartbreak' was debuted at the Lambeth Fringe Festival. She is thrilled to announce that this show will be going on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 4th to 12th August 2025. Tickets for this run will be available soon!
Check back here for more details of Emily's other upcoming poetry gigs!
