Patti Harrison (Together Together, Shrill, The Lost City, I Think You Should Leave) appears from the back of the auditorium, dressed in a white smock concealing the huge breasts of the show’s title. Charming and beautiful, she welcomes the audience, many of whom she suggests are already good friends.
By the time she literally climbs on stage, you have guessed that this is going to be no ordinary stand up.
First she encourages the audience to join her in expelling all negativity and sharing our hour together without distractions. She is not “a mean comedian”, she declares, and all races, genders and sexualities are safe and welcome in this space. We are regularly invited to hang out with her after the show and “grab a pint”
Before the show begins in earnest, she feels that she must share one thing with us, to which she will not refer again. She had a breast augmentation procedure which went wrong and her breasts became infected. Her presentation is the result of the therapy she went through in order to deal with the experience.
But now and again as she rambles on, chatting to the audience and telling her story of growing up trans in Ohio, you realise that she may not have dealt with the trauma completely.
As she continues, the odd passive aggressive comment appears.
Then the slightest audience reaction triggers her inner demons and they break out in screams or insults for which she is obliged to apologise. We learn for example that traumatised Patti hates gay people and ugly people and thinks that anyone in the audience wearing glasses is a pedophile. “Maybe if you are struggling with an eating disorder, this show is not for you.”
But it is not until she risks performing a song about being biracial, written during therapy, that things really start to fall apart. She ventures into the audience again, spinning out of control and the full hysteria of the show begins.
We find that she has become engaged to a minor but demanding Hollywood celebrity who is waiting in the wings. As she apologises and disappears offstage to have sex with him, it is evident from her ensuing distress that she is locked in a very abusive relationship.
After his departure, she reads to us from the script of a TV series she is pitching, written during lockdown, based on her favourite show Emily in Paris. Beautiful characters, beautiful clothes. But hers is the Quentin Tarantino version, with trans people dying in horrifyingly brutal “accidents” and a cameo performance by Ruth Bader Ginsberg as a vengeful feminist God.
However she is unable to finish the story as she suddenly feels unwell. Has she finally succumbed to her internalised transphobia, the infection or her general madness?]
The show now reaches peak outrage and the return of her boyfriend, when all hell is let loose.
<>As the chaos subsides, the performance folds with a hilarious movie revealing the true state of her troubled mind.
Is there closure? We will never know.
Patti is a delight. She is totally engaging and owns the audience throughout in this compelling, repulsive, side splitting performance. Expect the unexpected! Not to be missed!
Daily at 7.30pm until August 11th
Robert Malcolm is an Interior Designer who relocated from London to his home town of Edinburgh in 2019. Under the pen name of Bobby Burns he had his first novel, a gay erotic thriller called Bone Island published by Homofactus Press in 2011. Posted by queerguru at 11:05
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