Queens of Comedy: Feral Wellness
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin 8
★★★☆☆
“Give us a cheer if you’re mentally ill!” Sophia Wren says at the beginning of this lively comedy. It sets up yet another stand-up normalising discussion of depression, but with a new spin, by Wren and her fellow comedian Aideen McQueen, who aim to remove the shame of chaotic behaviour by repackaging a nervous breakdown as “feral wellness”.
On a stage flickering with candles and shimmering with bar chimes, Wren and McQueen reconfigure coping mechanisms as gags, eliciting contributions from the audience to create mantras, and perform a spoofy reiki demonstration (“Crystals. I know what you’re thinking,” says Wren, an intriguing surrealist. “They’re just gay rocks, right?”).
The comedy then settles into a triple bill of stand-up routines, the final section being performed by a different guest each night.
During her set, McQueen is well measured and superb at timing (“You know that app where rich older men reject younger women…? LinkedIn”). In her confessional delivery, she maps her wellness journey since attacking an English man in a pub who called the Irish language dead – she dealt with her rage by diving into Pilates and mental awareness.
Alison Spittle’s show Big, at Dublin Fringe, is harrowing and hilarious
Queens of Comedy: Feral Wellness, at Dublin Fringe: Coping mechanisms reconfigured as stand-up jokes
Amsterdam, at Dublin Fringe: Soulful comedy drama deftly captures anxiety of young love
Am I the A**hole?, at Dublin Fringe, is a courtroom spoof more interested in judgment than justice
Wren’s set is less internal and more a sweep of observations, ending with an absurdist impersonation of Christy Moore addressing male loneliness. She’s unafraid of taking risks: when talking about how, as a child, she loathed her light complexion, she jokes that “even the local paedophiles said, ‘Put some bronzer on that.’”
Justine Stafford, Sunday’s guest comic, brings an instant craft for misdirection (“I broke up with my boyfriend because he went into a tanning parlour … and came out a Protestant”). She finds jokes in unsatisfied desires – rare glimpses of displaced anger in Wren and McQueen’s show. There’s perhaps a risk, though, of its being too zen, its pain too controlled.
Runs at Smock Alley Theatre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Tuesday, September 16th
