sat 09/11/2024

Kerry Godliman, Touring review - affable and down-to-earth humour | reviews, news & interviews

Kerry Godliman, Touring review - affable and down-to-earth humour

Kerry Godliman, Touring review - affable and down-to-earth humour

A canny look at social mobility

Kerry Godliman's show covers a lot of territory from parent and friendship to hipsters and cultural divides

Kerry Godliman is such an affable and down-to-earth onstage presence that when she talks about whether she should move now that her area has upped and come – you can tell by the local baker making sourdough loaves – you think how much her neighbours would miss her.

Moving – whether geographically or along the social scale – is the central theme of Stick or Twist (which I saw at Soho Theatre), but Godliman neatly swerves into lots of other territory including bad parenting, female friendship and the invasion of hipsters in her previously gritty London abode. If she and her husband sold up, she tells us, they could afford to buy the whole of Hull on the proceeds.

Those subjects above all throw up some funny gags about gentrification, not least the ubiquity of yoga classes and Buddha statues, but the standout material here is about hipsters and the restaurants feeding their weird “food as art” habits. Not for them things we call plates; no, everything from paper to bin lids now serves as a meal platter – “I've had soup out of a bedpan.”

She's canny on the differences between “girl” friendships” and “bloke” friendships (or indeed man flu and woman flu), and the idiocy of the trend for adult colouring books; she also throws in some emoji jokes for good measure. This is standard fare for comics, but Godliman, nicely foul-mouthed when she wants to be, is caustic when required.

Godliman, who is also an accomplished actor (Bad Move, Derek), recently spent some time in Los Angeles for work, where she found herself becoming more Cockney by the minute, and when she talks about living there she goes beyond the standard culture-clash material with a tour-de-force about the perils of buying a “normal” bra in a city where normal has no meaning. She takes a wonderfully filthy detour into discussing the origin of the word “bukaki” before wrapping things up by tying up all the show's themes to finish a very pleasing hour.

Godliman, nicely foul-mouthed when she wants to be, is caustic when required

rating

Editor Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

Share this article

Add comment

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters