Housewife Surrealist
Bridget Christie is surreal, silly and superb with heavenly show
in STV on August 10th, 2011
Fringe review: The idea of a Catholic housewife doing comedy isn’t something that might appeal, but cast aside any prejudices as Bridget Christie is certainly coming closer to God with her enormously fun show at The Stand this year.
Take your expectations of how the humour of a Catholic mother might translate into a show, entirely flip them around and you may just come close to what Bridget Christie’s performance is like at The Stand this year with Surrealist Housewife.
Well, that’s unless you’d expect an avalanche of surreal and beautifully silly comedy, of course. (Which will include anyone previously familiar with her work.) This is what is delivered during the course of a crisply short set which is a refreshing anecdote to the glum humour delivered in droves elsewhere at the Fringe.
Christie’s opening introduction is worth the price of admission alone, taking to the stage with musical accompaniment while wearing a bishop’s outfit and gorilla hands (costume choices to be explained soon enough), dancing maniacally to keep the audience entertained as she employed a variety of themed gimmicks.
Though religion plays a heavy part the show certainly isn’t ‘Christian comedy’ as some sort of genre choice, instead using her background to harmlessly poke fun at aetheists while also playing up the absurdities of the faith she has.
Christie is fantastic at constructing beautifully off-the-wall flourishes to her performances, but is also adept at some reasonably straight ahead observational comedy, deftly recounting an experience with gangs in New York that would have most shaking in their boots, and nimbly relating the experiences of marrying an aetheist and having a priest for an uncle. (Oh, plus her proposal for how to call a halt to Old Firm troubles makes a huge amount of sense.)
There’s also a very, very special guest to add a bit more value, and her staging of a pivotal religious event has a sense of awe to match Hollywood blockbusters, if not quite the budget… All in all, it would be a bit of a sin to miss this show.
STV on 10th August 2011.
Filed Under: Housewife Surrealist, Review