Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Selena Mersey has a made a literal song and dance about her feminist dilemma in this musical comedy/burlesque hybrid.

Settling down with a new partner Dan, she starts to fret about whether the emotional labour she’s investing – acting as a nurse through her other half’s sickness and doing the lion’s share of the cooking – is playing into tradwife gender stereotypes. And it takes her the good part of an hour to realise what might seem obvious: that she’s doing this not because she’s a bad feminist but simply because she’s in a loving relationship.

The conclusion, which even she admits is ‘trite but true’, seems foregone not least because she already explained that the cooking is partly practical (he works long shifts, she’s at home all day) and partly because she enjoys doing it. And, surprise, when the roles are reversed and she becomes ill, her partner looks after her.

The simplicity of the resolution notwithstanding, Mersey has some fun noodling around the subject, and that old misogynist Sigmund Freud’s assertion that men see women as either saintly Madonnas who they cannot desire or debased whores they cannot respect.

She’s a playful yet commanding burlesque performer and punctuates the show with dynamic original musical numbers and good-spirited audience participation. The performance is defined by loose, rambunctious charm, including donning the father of psychoanalysis’s beard to tunefully mock his silly theories, and the content is a winning mix of the filthy and the fun.

Even if these talents are deployed in the service of a relatively flimsy emotional arc – including a messy ending in which the show seems to reach a natural conclusion several times before she actually brings the curtain down – we can enjoy the cabaret en route.

Review date: 26 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly Cowgate