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Edinburgh Fringe 2017

It’s No Job for a Nice Jewish Girl

Rachel Creeger

Genre: Comedy, Solo Show

Venue: Black Market

Festival:


Low Down

With a face that shouts ‘Christmas’ but a soul that screams ‘Hanukkah’, Rachel Creeger has always felt like she has a foot in two worlds

Review

Rachel Creeger comes on stage like the Jewish mother she is and worries that her room in the Black Market is too hot. Her first question before she begins her show is “Is anyone hungry?”

And that is how Jewish Mamas roll. She says, “I know you might not be aware of it, but I am a Jew. Because I am fair, I haven’t really suffered from anti-Semitism. My insides and my outsides don’t match.”

This show is Rachel Creeger’s coming out story. The performance is not comedy although she has billed it as such. It is fascinating storytelling. There is no real message here; just an hour’s ramble about how she got to be what she is today, with a picture of what it is like to grow up Jewish in Britain. She says she has always felt not quite right and it started when she was very young. “I have always loved Christmas, but I wasn’t allowed to celebrate,” she says. “But when I got married we moved to Munich and found a tiny Christmas tree in a cupboard.” And that was how she got her Christmas fix.

Creeger discusses the three questions asked most about being a Jew and answers them from her own experience. 1. Is it true that all Jews are rich? Unfortunately not. 2. Is it true that all Jews are competitive? She is. And 3. Do you cover your head to hide the marks where you had your horns removed? Creeger tells us she kind of wishes she could say yes to that one because if she had horns, she could have stored her bagels on them.

Creeger continues to highlight memorable moments in her life. She went to a religious high school in Essex where any allusion to sex had been removed from every text book and she explains how her high school principal discussed the facts of life with the girls in her class. She tells us that they were told that on their wedding night their job was to prepare a lovely dinner for their husbands. Evidently the husband would have to inform his wife about what comes next.

No show about being Jewish is complete unless it discusses food and Creeger tells us everyone in her family is very interested in eating. She tells us stories about her two sets of grandparents and what she learned from them. Then she tells us that she wanted to be in a girl band but when her parents became orthodox Jews she could not sing in front of men.

She ends her show by telling us her three wishes if she dies. 1. Her husband can remarry as soon as he likes but he must always compare his new bride to her. 2. She wants a glass coffin, and 3. Her headstone should remind viewers that her signature move is drawing the audience into the action.

In It’s no Job for a Nice Jewish Girl, Creeger gives us a lovely hour with lots of smiles and a glimpse into the fun side of being Jewish.

 

 

Published