Gillian English is a Bitter Shrew - Review
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Gillian English is a Canadian comedian and theatre-maker who is spending some time in Australia. Her show
Bitter Shrew (created in 2016) has been to the
Adelaide Fringe Festival and the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year, and this weekend she gave it a brief reprise before opening another of her shows
A Drag Queen Stole My Dress at
The Butterfly Club next week.
English has been called a bitter shrew many times in her life and she sets out to explain exactly why she is not - and no other woman is - a bitter shrew. To do this she reels out a long list of sexual encounters and some educational snippets about female anatomy.
Bitter Shrew has been performed before and forms part of a repertory English has developed but I get the impression the version we saw at the
Exford Hotel was a stripped down, simple stand-up comedy routine compared to earlier iterations. I liked it and I think this allowed the honesty and therefore the depth of the comedy to really leap out and tickle us and shock us and outrage us that perhaps a more theatrical version may have undersold.
There are a lot of female comedians who take on the topic of sexual equality and the humanity of farting in one's sleep. English brings more than just comedy skills however. She has trained in theatre (including training at the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) and her style is definitely unique.
Bitter Shrew is a show for both men and women. She speaks directly and instructs us on all the things we don't understand about women and their physiology. As women, we learn to pee after sex to prevent urinary tract infections and she gives a rather terrifying example of why spermicidal sponges aren't used anymore.
For the men, English explains that asking a woman with large breasts to jump up and down causes pain. In fact, she points out that breasts are just lumps of fat over which we have no control so if you like big breasts than you should really love big stomachs! I especially like her confusion and outrage at the male reaction to menstrual blood. As she mentions, men love all things bloody - sports, warfare, film, TV - and yet when the blood comes out of the vagina it is some sort of evil contamination which, if encountered, will destroy the world.
A very talented storyteller, English brings these truths to light between pickup stories of great humour and touching honesty. The audience swung wildly between great guffaws, energetic whoops, shocked silence, and yes - even the men were having a great time. Amidst it all, there was not a hint of self-deprecation. Before us was a confident, modern woman who asks for what she wants and is truthful about her humanity. As she says, this does not make her a bitter shrew and does not make any woman a bitter shrew.
Bitter Shrew has ended now, but you can see English in her show
A Drag Queen Stole My Dress at The Butterfly Club from 6-11 June. Undoubtedly it will be as lively and outrageous as
Bitter Shrew was.
4.5 Stars
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123356 - 2023-06-13 00:47:36