Search on for Scottish celebrity lookalikes to be made up on stage by artist who 'faked' Princess Diana photo
Alison Jackson’s photographs first became famous in the 1990s
A photographer who shot to fame after “faking” a picture of Princess Diana and Dodi al Fayed in the 1990s is to create lookalikes live on stage at the Fringe in a bid to lift the lid on celebrity fakery.
Alison Jackson will make up audience members on stage in Edinburgh to look like well-known celebrities and hold a photoshoot to demonstrate her work, which she says she hopes will "burst the bubble" of celebrity culture.
She hopes to recreate the meeting planned for this weekend in Scotland between Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer and John Swinney by pinpointing lookalikes who look like the three politicians, as well as creating images of Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi, alongside other well-known names including Taylor Swift, David Attenborough and Harry Styles.
Known as the first to create false images of celebrities presented as art, she now uses elements of AI in her work, as well as lookalikes and even real celebrities. Her show, Alison Jackson’s Faking Famous: You Can Be a Celebrity Too, is her Fringe debut after a short run of live shows in London which were cut short by the pandemic.
“It’s a new show, because I wanted to do a reveal of behind the scenes of how you make a celebrity,” she said. “I think it'll be quite an extraordinary thing to see, because people really do care about crafting. If you have a look at social media, everyone's busy trying out new products, how to get their hair straight, how to get the right body shape. There's a lot of craft involved in that.”
She added: “Everywhere, celebrities are busy trying to make themselves famous. The media is trying to make the celebrities famous. Social media, everyone's in on it, it's just this vicious circle of commerce.”
She is bringing her usual Donald Trump lookalike, who is flying in from New York with his own kilt - but is on the hunt for doubles for Mr Swinney and Sir Keir.
Ms Jackson became known for her photography in the 1990s, after she created a photo of what appeared to be Princess Diana giving the middle finger in 1998, followed a year later by a mock-up family portrait of Diana, Dodi al-Fayed and their fictional child.
She said: “[When I started] I was commenting on the media fake news, and the rise of information that wasn't correct in the media using imagery. And now, we're still continuing to have misinformation and disinformation, and nobody's managed to break that bubble.
“I try to break the bubble by making it look as real as possible, but actually, you know it's not real. You always know that these are lookalikes, but after a while, which is intentional, you don't care. And the whole guessing game of whether it's real or fake or not seems to be enormous. People are always trying to work it out.”
The three-night performance will also see her attempt to recreate a picture of Princess Diana, using an audience member.
Her show, at Assembly Checkpoint from 20-23 August, will include a competition with a panel of celebrity judges, who, along with the audience, vote on the best lookalike, as well as revealing stories from her infamous shoots.
She is planning to do pop-up events around Edinburgh during the Fringe.
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