Last August Squeamish Louise was looking for an Edinburgh Festival style comedy action in London as an escape from the Olympics. She found it with Rosie Wilby and the show How (Not) to Make it in Britpop. I like to think the show contributed to the explosion in 1990s revival fashion - it was a real slow burner to begin with to convince people to wear backwards baseball caps and tiny round sunglasses but it’s finally happened.
It certainly inspired Squeamish Louise to dig out some old Britpop albums and gear (of the fashion variety), How (Not) to Make it in Britpop made her: "pine for 90s fashions of jeans, t-shirts, feather boas and stripey shirts. Damn." I, however, never got to see the show in spite of the sage and specific advice from Squeamish Louise "Just go and see her. Seriously."
It certainly inspired Squeamish Louise to dig out some old Britpop albums and gear (of the fashion variety), How (Not) to Make it in Britpop made her: "pine for 90s fashions of jeans, t-shirts, feather boas and stripey shirts. Damn." I, however, never got to see the show in spite of the sage and specific advice from Squeamish Louise "Just go and see her. Seriously."
Last night, almost a year later I finally saw Rosie Wilby in comedy action in her new show Is Monogamy Dead? in which Rosie questioned monogamy, as you might expect at the Camden Fringe in the same venue that Squeamish Louise had caught her in, only this time it was full "I feel like I've made it!"
The show is kind of a spin off, or second part of her 2009 show The Science of Sex (which I...also didn't see - the main thing it I saw THIS one) and an investigation of the increasingly analysed conflict between freedom and commitment. The divide between those who stay together forever and those who split up and ask you to take sides.
The show is kind of a spin off, or second part of her 2009 show The Science of Sex (which I...also didn't see - the main thing it I saw THIS one) and an investigation of the increasingly analysed conflict between freedom and commitment. The divide between those who stay together forever and those who split up and ask you to take sides.
| If someone can make light-hearted jokes about polyamory, monogamy and any other 'ory' or 'amy' that can come up when it comes to relationships then they deserve some kind of award, or maybe an honorary degree in psychotherapy. | I think I've agreed along with the rest of the audience to sort of marry Rosie Wilby |
Using a flipboard and a road signs metaphor "if I were driving down the road and needed directions I'd wind down the window and ask 'how do I get to so and so?' Actually I'd ask how do you drive?" Rosie scientifically guided us through her sex and relationships questionnaire. There were percentages and everything.
Rosie covered ground on all kinds of relationship agreements, including sauna pacts in which gay men in a relationship agree sauna encounters don't "count" as it were. A friend of mine once visited one of these saunas and amused himself by shouting "oh no I can't find my phone." A mass of helpful naked men started hunting for this phantom lost phone "what model is it?" "Did you definitely have it with you when you came in here?" So you mustn't think of them as dens of sin. As with the notorious GrindR app, saunas have not translated to successfully into the lesbian world, but you will have to ask Rosie for her theories on this.
There's something wonderfully endearing about Rosie Wilby, which stops the amount of props she uses (flipcharts, voting cards, loudhailers, experimental cereal) from seeming too gimmicky - she's not trying to kill time, she wants to see what would happen if she fed a cereal flake to a member of the audience.
I laughed so hard I snorted, were we a regular comedy blog I'd insist upon a snortometer and this show got one snort. And now I think I've agreed along with the rest of the audience to sort of marry Rosie Wilby. And I'm OK with that.
Squeamish Kate
Rosie Wilby's show Is Monogamy Dead? opens at the Assembly Halll in Edinburgh this Thursday
Rosie covered ground on all kinds of relationship agreements, including sauna pacts in which gay men in a relationship agree sauna encounters don't "count" as it were. A friend of mine once visited one of these saunas and amused himself by shouting "oh no I can't find my phone." A mass of helpful naked men started hunting for this phantom lost phone "what model is it?" "Did you definitely have it with you when you came in here?" So you mustn't think of them as dens of sin. As with the notorious GrindR app, saunas have not translated to successfully into the lesbian world, but you will have to ask Rosie for her theories on this.
There's something wonderfully endearing about Rosie Wilby, which stops the amount of props she uses (flipcharts, voting cards, loudhailers, experimental cereal) from seeming too gimmicky - she's not trying to kill time, she wants to see what would happen if she fed a cereal flake to a member of the audience.
I laughed so hard I snorted, were we a regular comedy blog I'd insist upon a snortometer and this show got one snort. And now I think I've agreed along with the rest of the audience to sort of marry Rosie Wilby. And I'm OK with that.
Squeamish Kate
Rosie Wilby's show Is Monogamy Dead? opens at the Assembly Halll in Edinburgh this Thursday
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