ROSIE JONES: BACKWARD  ☆☆ ☆☆
Soho Theatre

Rosie Jones is Britain’s 96th most powerful lesbian, according to one poll. Jones would enjoy this accolade much more if only she had met another 95 lesbians in her entire life. Treating this as a challenge to fulfill much of her act is devoted to her search for love, whether the women end up as a main meal or preferably a tasty snack just to get her by. 

Her search for sapphic sustenance is made more challenging by the reality of being “inspiring”, which is what people say when they want to euphemize her cerebral palsy. Inspiring is a word that dogs her because, as she says, it’s a little bit of a burden to carry if you have a pint in one hand and a fag in the other. 

Jones’ humor is as deft as a thread through the eye of a needle whether it is incorporating her own atypical speed of speech to perfect the timing of a punch line or puncturing other people’s expectations about what topics she will cover.  Jones puts everything out into the spotlight including her tendency to fall over backwards to bait hook for all those hot lesbian ambulance drivers.  

Jones incorporates her growing celebrity status into her act but humble brags that underneath it all she is still ‘a cunt’ regardless of how famous or ‘inspiring’ she gets. Part of the fame is the number of awards she has started to receive, including a Most Remarkable Woman award, which she uses to launch into a a story about her most remarkable sex acts. We promise they will make you, and her favorite crush Gillian Anderson, blush. Red heads everywhere beware, Rosie is out to drink from your goblets of fire. 

Just when it appears it will be all merry mischief Jones lands a few gut punches. When the audience arrive she is dancing joyfully listening to her headphones. Only at the end do we learn that she always wears them to and from her performances because she wants the last laughs she hears to be the ones from her audience for the right reasons rather than the ones from the people who pass her by on the streets for the wrong reasons. 

Jones’ humour is a delightful see saw from the quick little highs of fame to the dirty dips of the libido. If you fancy bouncing along with her you have until Saturday at the Soho Theatre London.

HTTPS://SOHOTHEATRE.COM/
Until Saturday 25th Jan 2020

Review by Andrew Hebden

Queerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.