Edinburgh Fringe 2011
Kerry Godliman – Wonder Woman
Kerry Godliman
Genre: Character Stand up
Venue:
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Kerry Godliman is a highly engaging comic, who has previously been part of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Road Show. Her show’s theme (implied by her poster) is the many ways that she has attempted (and in most cases failed) to emulate Wonder Woman in her life, after idolising her as a young girl.
Review
Godliman is the kind of person I would envisage inviting round to my house for a cup of tea in the afternoon, which would turn into a few drinks, and then suddenly we’d check the time and it would be midnight. She’s warm, chatty, matter-of-fact and an absolute hoot and a half.
Her examination of her life as a wannabe Wonder Woman was sparked by a surgery which meant she couldn’t use one hand for a few weeks, and the subsequent bossing around of everyone in the house caused her husband to inform her that she had Wonder Woman syndrome – that is, that she wants to do everything, and do it properly. She uses this premise to go into some quite interesting background detail about the history of the 70-year-old comic book character and her powers, uniform and modes of transportation and some interesting thoughts about other comic heroes before applying the Wonder Woman matrix to her own life experiences in a way that is intelligent, witty and a mile a minute.
She investigates her Wonder Woman syndrome in relation to having two children, and to being a female comic in a male-dominated world. She tells us her mother is a feminist and so supported her love of the character as a child, and this gentle approach to feminism via pop culture doesn’t alienate her audience. Being a reasonably gung-ho feminist myself, I enjoyed her musings all the more, but she sure doesn’t ram anything down your throat.
Wonder Woman tied in as a theme much more than many other overtly themed shows. Godliman has a warm, sparkly energy and deserves to be selling out her show.
