I went along to Femme Fatigue at the Wardrobe last night expecting to watch (as advertised) a ‘quirky one woman show’ by Ella Evans. It promised to be a ‘hilarious feminist performance.’ At worst I was anticipating a pretty cutesy, syrupy theatre piece (the word quirky threw me, and the picture of Ella.) At best, I was hoping for an impassioned feminist comedy. But what I actually watched was two women delivering two separate stand-up routines. And they were pretty funny.
Before Ella came on we were treated to forty minutes of comedy from Amy Hyde; a fantastic comedian who warmed the room as she warmed into her (presumably pretty last minute) guest appearance set. She was charming, superbly self-deprecating and very real. She went off-tangent mid-poem, spilled embarrassing truths and revealed herself totally to the audience, through a series of anxious anecdotes, a photo montage of her life and (for some reason) an embarrassing Kate Bush-esque music video.
During said video, Amy changed and re-entered as a self-help Guru. She interacted with the audience as we became members of her eleven-week programme, entering on a journey with her, which involved serene music, non-sequiturs and a hilarious routine involving a blender which I won’t even attempt to describe. She was just as fantastic playing this part as she was as herself; all-round very theatrical, very funny and very heartfelt.
She was the complete opposite of Ella. The headline act turned out to be another forty minutes of stand-up, without any of the dramatic verve, intuition or truthfulness of the previous comic.
The full forty minutes was read from a script, which the comedian had to keep looking and shuffling through – truthfully, this was pretty infuriating. There wasn’t exactly much in the way of feminism either. Yes, she talked about her breasts, and her distaste of middle-class white men, but as a thoroughly middle-class white woman herself Evans’ comedy strikes me as coming from an odd place. She was very funny at points; she was shocking, sharp and self-deprecating. But it’s almost as though she hasn’t quite found her voice yet. At points she was stuck between the characters of the anxious Y generation woman and the posh country-girl. There was a lot of irony in her anti-men rants, granted, but at the same time she had a few too many jokes about lesbians, which began to border on offensive, and much of her material fell flat.
Though it will be interesting to see Ella Evans’ progression in comedy, the real star of the night (although a surprise) was the effulgent Amy Hyde. She has to be watched. ★★★☆☆ Chris White 16/05/15
