Review by Steve Bennett

If Kate Micucci didn’t exist, the Disney Corporation would probably invent her: a pretty, doe-eyed innocent, cute as a basketful of puppies, with a sing-song alto voice and a delicate, vulnerable quirkiness. Were it not for the alternative arts scene, it would be hard to see her in the real word, there being limited vacancies in the current economic crisis for frolicking in the glades, serenading woodland creatures.

Indeed, outside of performing, this childishly sweet waif-naif has managed to hold down jobs including mask-maker and sandcastle-building instructor. Her chances of running a major corporation are slim, let’s leave it at that.

Her charming show comes with its own lo-fi, home-drawn set, recreating her Los Angeles flat, complete with origami birds for her to talk to, and collection of nun dolls. To dollop on the sweetness, the songs she sings – with ukulele, guitar or keyboard – take a decidedly ingenuous point of view: being sad at seeing a stray dog, imagining that the reason the moon sets into the ocean is because it wants to go for a swim, or a melancholic tribute to the avuncular children’s TV host Mister Roberts. That she has not one, but two, numbers called The Happy Song probably tells you all you need to know.

Some of the tracks are illustrated by some simple, but typically adorable, puppetry, courtesy of her sad-sack sidekick/stalker, who provides the only real resistance to her tsunami of cutesiness, including some hilariously inappropriate man-on-muppet action.

That provides one of the few actual laughs in the flightily whimsical show that is more about enveloping you in a cosy blanket of niceness, than it is about bringing forth hearty guffaws. She has her moments – such as the internet hit Dear Deer (see the video tab, above) which warns her cervine chums to beware her trigger-happy father – but like anything too sugary, her act should be enjoyed as an occasional treat rather than a 50-minute blow-out.

But a few early fumbled lyrics aside, she does what she does very well, so if unaffected girly shtick is your bag, you certainly can fill it up here.

Review date: 21 Jul 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett