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When Alicia Queen returned to dating after divorce, she expected her newfound confidence to help. Instead, after more than a decade away, she found herself trying to understand how it all worked again. That experience became the starting point for Blip Blarp: An Alien Love Story, which she performs at Headgate Theatre in Colchester on 28th and 29th October as part of Colchester Fringe.
“I think I was feeling a lot more confident in my thirties than I had in my twenties, so I assumed dating would be relatively similar,” Alicia says. “But oh boy, have things changed since the days of OkCupid. Technology, men, assumptions around sexuality… everything felt a little different.”
Living in France meant she was also flirting in her second language. She would sometimes miss a nuance or realise, five minutes later, that she had misunderstood something.
“So the show became a way of poking fun both at the technology and at myself and my own mishaps,” she says. “And because vulnerability in dating and sex is so universal, I thought maybe people might recognise themselves in it and feel a little less alone if they’re also finding the whole process awkward or bewildering.”
Her character, Blip Blarp, arrives on Earth with a mission to produce 1,000 offspring and conquer the planet. She is confident that attracting humans will be easy.
“She sees humans as a sub-species: simply designed and easily managed,” Alicia explains. “From her perspective, attracting a few humans should be easy.”
Her encounters soon expose the gaps in her research. Human technology makes attachment difficult, while the people themselves turn out to be more complex than she expected.
Alicia took inspiration from B-movie sex bots when developing Blip Blarp, then added her own touches to give the character more emotional depth. Her training at the International École Lecoq helped her work out how the alien would move and how those movements could express different feelings without losing the character’s physical consistency.
“That training was crucial in developing a character who feels alien enough to be funny and strange, but human enough that the audience can connect with her and stick around for the journey,” she says.
The solo performance combines physical theatre, clowning, comedy, music and multimedia. Blip Blarp’s attempts at courtship include a “Zoronian mating sequence”, and Alicia has also created animals from her home planet.
“Because she’s an alien, I think it’s much more exciting to see these things physically played out than to simply have her describe them.”
As Blip Blarp begins to fall for a human, she tries to change her approach to make herself more appealing. It does not always work.
“The comedy comes from watching her try to figure out something that humans often struggle with too,” Alicia says. “How do you make yourself desirable to someone without losing yourself in the process?”
Members of the audience take the role of her primary love interest, Jeff. Some interactions happen from their seats; others involve an invitation onto the stage. Alicia chooses a different person each time.
“And the audience should know that I choose my Jeffs randomly,” she says. “No one is safe!”
Performing the show has also changed how Alicia feels about the experiences that inspired it. People have responded to parts of the story in ways she had not expected.
“Ironically, showing all the ways, albeit exaggerated ones, that I’ve made myself vulnerable while dating, and then watching the audience connect with those moments, has made me feel much more okay with my own vulnerability,” Alicia says. “It’s also made me more comfortable with the fact that trying to connect romantically is a messy, beautiful experience for everyone. We’re all just figuring it out as we go.”
Blip Blarp: An Alien Love Story is at Headgate Theatre’s main auditorium on Wednesday 28th October at 10pm and Thursday 29th October at 8.30pm. The show is for ages 18+ and includes light nudity and audience participation. Book through Colchester Fringe.
