It is one of the quirky break-out hits of the Twitter age - a social media account where people can anonymously confess their sins, be they outrageous and huge or minor and hilarious.
And now, the creator of the Twitter account ‘Fesshole’ is bringing a live show version of this to Bristol.
Rob Manuel, who also runs a Twitter account called ‘Anon Opin’ which gives people the chance to say out loud and anonymously the kind of controversial opinions that they know might well get them in trouble, said Bristol has always provided a fertile harvest of confessions, and people who attend the show next month are encouraged to bring their own ‘fesses’ to share in a live ‘safe space’.
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Since starting the ‘Fesshole’ account on Twitter five years ago, it has gained almost a million followers. Rob accepts ‘confessions’ on an online form, and then posts them anonymously and automatically - one an hour for 18 hours every day.
The confessions can be about anything and everything - from worrying posts about disgusting domestic habits, infidelity of bad behaviour on nights out, to more wholesome confessions about mildly naughty behaviour from childhood.
Many of the tweeted confessions ‘go viral’, and end up circling the global Twittersphere reaching a far wider audience than the 950,000 followers.
Converting a Twitter account into a live show might seem odd, but Rob dresses like a priest and says it goes down well. “Generally speaking the show is a show of two parts,” he told Bristol Live. “First up is a ‘best of’ section, where we go through some classic confessions and some amusing history of how we got here.
“The second half is all about audience confessions and I’m looking forward to hearing about the dank and horrible side of Bristol - every show is different because of this,” he added.
Among the Bristol-specific confessions Fesshole has received include the simple: “I’ve lived in Bristol most of my adult life and I f***ing hate Massive Attack”, to this dark attack on the public transport announcements: “The lady on the voiceover on my bus to Bristol places an infuriating amount of emphasis on the P in "next stop". I'm sure she's a lovely person in real life but I want to cave her head in with a bowling ball while she begs me to "stoPPP".
The 48-year-old from Wolverhampton, now lives in London and sifts through around 200 confessions a day submitted via an online form, and almost all don’t make the cut - Rob said they have to be interesting or funny to get tweeted out.
He said the Fesshole Twitter account grew in lockdown, and he’s now compiled the best into a book.
“Lockdown happened and the account grew really well," Rob told The Mirror. “Everyone was bored and one of the things about the pandemic and lockdown was many of us just weren't creating any stories at that moment - we were sitting at home and I felt it was almost nostalgia for when we had great stories."
Rob admitted that he has to assess each submission for its credibility, which he says can be ‘complicated’ as, like viewers, he has no other information but their statement.
"I work with my own gut feeling," he continues. "The stuff I don't publish is because I think it would be wrong to put it in front of a large audience. I'm just looking for anything funny or interesting; that makes you laugh or gasp," Rob added.
“The core of it is observational comedy. Observational comedy with the added richness of going, 'is this is real?' And we're sort of recognising we are to some degree, imperfect,” he added.
- Fesshole Live comes to the Cube Microplex cinema and theatre in Kingsdown on June 24.
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