Janine Harouni, Soho Theatre review - families and surviving them

Write about what you know, they say. And just as her previous show was about imminent motherhood (she performed the show while heavily pregnant) now Janine Harouni brings us This Is What You Waited For, which is about – you’ve guessed it – being a parent.

The American comic, however, doesn’t deliver a mushy paean to her toddler son, although he certainly provides a lot of comedy, not least about his big head and the bragging rights she gets for having birthed him.

Rather, she digs into what it means to be a parent, how we all regress to our childhood selves when we're with our parents, and what kind of parenting she experienced growing up in Brooklyn to parents of Lebanese and Irish descent who are clearly both big characters. 

What follows is a neatly packaged hour of stories about her childhood, her spray tan-obsessed mum (“the Banksy of Brooklyn”), her softy dad and her nerdy husband. She even offers a little dating advice: marry a nerd, as they’ll never leave you.

Along the way Harouni confesses to her weird confusion over the origin of olives, talks about her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in a Batman movie and shares some interesting views on circumcision.

It’s all very slick and bounces along nicely from one well-honed payoff to another, but Harouni introduces some occasional grit. Any time we may think she’s getting a little misty-eyed about her family and how much she owes to them, along comes an edgy comment or story – such as the shocking lie she told about having cancer to save her awkwardness on a first date. 

But even in the examination of differing parenting styles in her family and what life lessons she took from her parents, there’s nothing too deep here; Harouni keeps things light, even when describing the difficulties of having a constantly crying child. The hour whizzes by and she brings together all the strands neatly, ending on a very good callback.

• Until 1 November, then touring until 27 March 2026
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