Comedy / aisling bea
Review: What the Frock!, The Lantern
Question: What do you get when a former ASDA fishmonger, an actress and a Guardian writer go to the Lantern at the Colston Hall? Answer: a night of outstanding comedy from three comedians at the very top of their game.
Bristol women’s comedy night What the Frock! marked their fortieth show with a sold-out night of top-notch comedy from three award-winning comedians: Aisling Bea (So You Think You’re Funny winner, pictured), Shazia Mirza (AWA Arts and Culture Award) and Jayde Adams (Funny Women Award 2014).
Bristolian Jayde Adams, something of a force of nature, was the compere for the evening. And what a compere she was. With her combination of quick wit, cheeky, no-holds-barred questioning and ebullience, she won the crowd over within minutes. Even the latecomers who were the butt of a few barbed jokes took it well and became her assistants for the evening. If a compere is meant to warm the crowd up for the main acts, Jayde left us feeling like we’d been sitting in a comedy sauna.
Much of Aisling Bea’s material focussed on her chasing her dream of being an actress, and her upbringing in rural Ireland. One outstanding example was her explaining the reason she speaks so quickly – passing cars being the only conversational opportunities available when she was growing up. Whilst her work seemed gentle, digressive and conversational, it also made a number of pertinent points regarding media-constructed expectations of women and men. She left the stage to tumultuous and well-deserved applause.
Headliner Shazia Mirza, like Aisling, used personal experience as the crux of her comedy. However, Shazia’s was less of an easy ride, bordering on the uncomfortable – especially for the more PC among the crowd, who seemed unsure whether to laugh at jokes about Pakistan, the Taliban, and Muslim culture and attitudes, even if they were delivered by a British Muslim woman. Mirza’s stand-out routine – a description of buying a bulletproof vest for her shows in Pakistan, incorporating Amazon reviews of said vest – was inspired.
Overall, tonight was a triumph: three very different comedians, with very different approaches, attracting an appreciative audience of women and men and proving that, if you’re funny, people will watch you – irrespective of gender.
What the Frock! was at The Lantern, Colston Hall on Friday, 14 November. For more upcoming WTF! dates, visit the website.
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