Review: Greater Manchester Fringe Festival – Women Who Wank
Article published: Saturday, July 11th 2015
A show entitled Women Who Wank would never be intended to not to attract your attention. The one-woman show by 33-year-old improv performer and one half of FoolSize Theatre Joanne Tremarco promised to be “comical” and “tragical”, and didn’t fail to deliver both in equal measures.
Addressing us with our first question, it was established pretty early on that in the intimate front room of the King’s Arms, there would be no room for shyness: “Are you a wanker?” asked Joanne each audience member in turn.
Once we had established the status of each member of the audience’s self-performed sexual preferences, the show promptly spiralled into a frenzy of confessions, confrontations and a whole load more c-words, wrapped around skits ranging from silly, to touching, to outrageously surreal.
Conversation threaded back and forth around religion, relationships, love, life and death, and the search for the truth about whether it is possible to have an orgasmic birth, while Joanne titillated and teased the audience with improvised sketches to animate and reflect the innermost thoughts that emerged effortlessly from its members.
Discussing the premise behind her show, Joanne said: “I want the audience to feel relaxed and laugh at parts of themselves where they identify with me, laugh at the ridiculousness of ourselves and our sexuality and condition, and shed things as much as we can.” But, she added, rather than making anyone feel uncomfortable and look ridiculous, she is the person the audience pins all their judgements on.
One show saw the creation of a human ‘Catholic blob’, through which we explored “all of the ways in which Catholicism influenced sexuality”, while another involved an off-the-cuff simulation of Blind Date as a vehicle to examine our individual grasps on feminism, and how they manifest themselves in our daily lives.
One particularly poignant moment came in the form of a sketch in which Joanne relayed a touching conversation with her own mother, which had the audience captivated – introspectively reflecting on their own relationships, the fragility of life and the strength of love. Joanne said herself of the show: “I would never call it a comedy. It is often funny but sometimes it is very tender. It is not meant to be group therapy but sometimes the show just goes that way. It is a strange space, a kind of space that belongs to everyone.”
The result of Joanne’s innate aptitude to judge the atmosphere in the room and play to the collective strength of the audience produces something quite amazing. So amazing that, after one of the shows, the audience members continued the evening in the form of their very own post-show conversational catharsis.
After seeing both the Friday 3rd and Sunday 5th shows, it is evident that each one promises to be uniquely entertaining, as Joanne both cajoles and responds to the individual characters and comforts of her audience – whilst remaining utterly captivating and unequivocally entertaining. As Joanne herself rightly highlighted: Women Who Wank is so good, I came twice.
Zoe Johnson
Women Who Wank returns to the King’s Arms as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival on the 28th and 31st July, for information and tickets see the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival website.
More: Culture, Manchester, QuickKick, Stage
Comments
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What percentage (roughly) of the audience were wankers?
Comment by Conrad Bower on July 15, 2015 at 5:51 pm
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