Because You Demanded It
Raging disbelief about Brexit ★★★★
Written by Alice Jones in iNews on August 23rd, 2016
Bridget Christie was planning to write a show about death this year – that’s why she’s in a coffin on her flyers. But then Brexit happened, and with six weeks to go until the Fringe, she ripped up her show and started again.
Thank goodness she did; in a cathartic hour, she unpicks and ridicules the events of the past two months, skilfully combining raging disbelief, hilarity and an unforgettable impression of Michael Gove.
In fact, as she tells us at the start, Christie doesn’t want to talk about Brexit, she wants to talk about her garden, her “main source of joy” in these troubling times. And so begins a paean to her favourite shrub but she can’t help herself, a few pointed references to foreign soil and the Brexit apoplexy comes bubbling up.
Christie is angry; the mere mention of Boris Johnson has her literally banging her head against the wall. She is aware that she is one of the 48% and many will not agree but she has a message for them too: they can leave her show if they like, but there’s no guarantee of what other shows they might get to, or if they will be let back in…
She is furious with Cameron for many things, not least for humming, “like the sound you make when you’re putting muffins in the oven” after his resignation. She is furious with the BBC for interviewing a man with swastika tattoos and not mentioning them. And she is incandescent about the idea that people are “sick of experts.” (“Fucking dentist! Lording it over me with his tooth knowledge!”)
There are tangents too – a routine about male vs female confidence, which sees him ploughing the furrow that made her name and a hilarious tale of how the Daily Mail mistook her for Charles II (really). She ends the show with a reading from “The Ladybird Book of Brexit”, and an emotional nod to her own Irish immigrant parents.
She might describe herself ironically as a “feminist comedian” but this show proves beyond doubt that she is simply one of the best and most vital comedians we have.
Written by Alice Jones in iNews on 23rd August 2016.
Filed Under: Because You Demanded It, Review