Lizzie Bean is our Lambeth Fringe guest blogger. Her show is Phuckets and Rainbows. (Book here).
I have spent a disproportionate amount of my life thinking that I was fundamentally broken. Not in a dramatic kind of way, but in the way, that I simply never measured up to what a “Good” human should be.
I aspired to be more.
To be all the things.
I was not.
I believed that, to feel good enough in this lifetime, I had to prove I was better… thinner, more beautiful, cleverer, a perfect parent, a kind woman. More together. More successful. More… Everything! And somewhere in all that striving to become a more polished version… this ordinary woman, lost sight, of what it meant to be human.
To live.
At 48, my nervous system had had enough. But instead of pouring wine into my heart and my head. To quiet the feelings of inadequacy and fear. I poured my life onto a stage!
And somehow Phuckets and Rainbows became a thing! A one woman show about humanning. The delight and mcphuckery of it all. The chaos and the comedy… The heart ache, and the highs. The ridiculousness, the shame… and the endless pressure, to have your shit together!
The show has toured the Southwest, and more latterly returned from the brilliant Edinburgh Fringe where the reviews were magic and the audiences warm. Humans connected in the mess and magic of feeling. Standing ovations were a nightly wonder.
And I think that is because, beneath the comedy, the songs and the storytelling… The story touches something that belongs to us all…
Phuckets and Rainbows is Theatre… But for me, it is also a sweary salve for a weary world.
I love sharing the show. The laughter, the silence. The moments a room full of humans recognise themselves in one and another. I love the feeling. The hope and hilarity it brings to the world.
And I am very much looking forward to sharing it all again! 9th of October. Lower Marsh Arts Club. As part of the Lambeth Fringe 2026. So if you fancy and evening of all of this, with an added mole rat, magic bean and a whispered reminder that maybe you are enough… I hope to see you there.
Book here.
