By Ollie Wilson
You don't see many stand-up shows with real balls, taking the piss out of men and women, embracing stereotypes before debunking them, and not giving an eff about political correctness. This is one such rarity.
Madeleine Brettingham uses her background of being brought up by an alcoholic single dad in not-so-sunny Bournemouth to expose the ludicrousness of 'man the legend'. With an exceptionally tightly written script, delivered in a machine-gun rat-tat-tat fashion, and a bit of a put-on ladette accent, her scathing lines rarely missed their mark. 'Women had tits, men had a van,' she said, reflecting on different times. And the showjumper clitoris joke was a killer!
From geezers - 'half-man, half-crab' - to the Artful Dodger to serial killers, she combined wit with physicality and her imposing height with an ability to out-geezer geezers, out-bollocks blokes - and lampoon car-crash 'legends'.
And, yeah, why shouldn't a woman behave just as crudely as a man, and be awarded popular 'legend' status for doing so? What geezers can do, birds can do better!
The finale was a triumphant treat! And, overall, it is a beautiful piece of writing, poetic at times, without letting the facts get in the way of a great story. Yet at times it was also brutally honest. Brettingham, a Cambridge graduate, uses stock stereotypes as skilfully as Al Murray, an Oxford University graduate, did more than 25 years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe as the Pub Landlord to expose the absurdity of so much of the human condition.
The inspired greatness of this show is beyond a shadow of doubt.
Star rating: *****
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