5 – 9 March
In her own words… writer, actor, singer and composer Natasha Sutton Williams “subverts traditional representations of female characters and instead presents complex, hilarious, and even amoral female protagonists with unflinching detail… the filthy joke that makes your mum laugh in spite of herself.”
And so it is with Clown Sex, an hour-long sexual ‘wild mouse’ ride with Sutton Williams’ eavesdropping Gary Strange, a character living in the London sewers, able to listen in to the intimate conversations of residents above via their pipes.
More clit-lick than chick-lit, this triptych of ribald tales invites an anticipation of sexual frisson. But its in-your-face detail also leaves a sense of the absurdity of sex, with the humour relying quite hard on the discomfort of ‘too much detail’. But you sense that this is Sutton Williams’ desire – to break down every imaginable taboo while releasing sexual imagination and possibility. She is currently writing a new musical, Lesbian Pirates, based on a real history of two women masquerading as male sailors, which promises to float new boats.
If storytelling was a sport, Natasha would be an Olympian. With a wiry, edgy energy to her delivery applied to the jaw-dropping revelations in her show, the shock value is maxed out as she prowls around the empty stage area of the Wardrobe. Nervous titters, as well as the odd unsuppressed guffaw, issue from an audience never quite sure what they will be asked to take on next.
Firing up a freaky conveyor belt of imaginary misfits – the teacher who loathes children and daydreams of performing fellatio whilst yearning for love; the journalist with an unusual cat problem; and, finally, with the safety catch well and truly off, a mad clown figure who is hell bent on satisfying every orifice and protrusion in an orgasmic whistling kettle of a conclusion, Sutton Williams never takes her finger off the naughty button, revelling in the telling of twisted sexual peccadilloes – some, at times, carrying more cringe than comedy.
If there is a down side to Clown Sex, it could be argued that there is emotional disconnect to the content. But it is Sutton Williams’ eyes-wide-open, devil-may-care attitude, her sometimes hilarious physical theatre, her insistence we follow her into the darkest folds of our skin that rescues the show, making the explicit seem celebratory. Her bravado in ‘going there’ is a box worth ticking.
★★★☆☆ Simon Bishop, 7 March 2024
Photo credit: Rowan Spray
