Brighton Fringe 2016
Women’s Hour
Shit Theatre
Genre: Cabaret, Comedy, Theatre
Venue: The Marlborough Theatre
Festival: Brighton Fringe
Low Down
Women’s Hour – I’M FINE – Women’s Hour. First on Women’s Hour: Men, then us. Women’s Hour. Later on Women’s Hour: Ankle Socks? Women’s Hour.
Women’s Hour is a cabaret piece about what happens when women are given just one hour a day to think about what it is to be a woman. Commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre and winner of Three Weeks Editors Choice award 2015,
Review
Women’s Hour is a two-hander, and a strange mishmash of cabaret show, satirical take on the Radio 4 show of the same name, and GCSE drama style ‘TV adverts’. It uses this format as a feminist platform, where issues such as the newly gendered Kinder Eggs feature heavily, as do pictures of celebrity women who are flashed up on the screen as they chant ‘Isn’t she lovely’, ‘What a princess’, over and over again.
In some ways this show lives up to the name of its company and is a bit shit. The occasional ‘ad breaks’, where they mock L’Oreal adverts and vaginoplasty vouchers are pretty naff, despite the good point they make. However, it is clear that the unpolished, madcap nature of the show is intentional. The performers, Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit (can these be their real names?), are clearly talented singers and actors, and for all its random chaos, they know what they’re doing, and do it with panache.
These women have a very definite feminist agenda, and are very clear that comedy is the way to present it. The series of skits that form Women’s Hour are almost all very silly and pretty funny, with some standout moments being the Pam Ayers rip off poem, and their beautifully harmonised rendition of the vile, misogynist comments that women receive on social media.
You leave the show feeling like you have been relentlessly bombarded for an hour. The show is fast paced and several of the skits don’t make a whole lot of sense. However, it is worth seeing for the ones that do. There was a lot of laughter from the audience and some excellent political points being made, arguably in the best way possible – through comedy.
Shit Theatre are definitely worth going to see, and I shall be wearing with pride the ‘Shit’ badge that they gave me when I came in.
