JENNY ECLAIR: JOKES, JOKES, JOKES – LIVE!
Jenny Eclair, alternative comedy queen, successful novelist, radio game show regular and hugely successful podcaster – and now 65. This show is an autobiographical evening based on her very funny memoir, her words. She’s not wrong, Eclair is fearlessly funny.
But unlike so many stand-ups, the humour comes mainly at her own expense, her somewhat shambolic history and life choices. Experiences that she dares us to share as she charts her life through the decades from 1960 to the present. And nothing is sacred!
Childhood fantasy, teenage sexual awakening, flashers, drama school, promiscuity and parents. Oh how she loves the fun and foibles of her extraordinary parents, spying, scatalogical mishaps on the golf course, and finally dealing with death and sadness. And even then, through that clear sadness and sense of loss she finds the funny side of things.
Much of the show is about the gradual decay of life, the way she sees things and the way she is seen. And she invites the audience to join in, decade by decade. Not prompting answers or heckles, in fact this is a heckle free experience, but by the simple raising of hands in acknowledgement that we know exactly what she is talking about. It works beautifully.
Her delivery is wonderfully frenetic, she stalks the stage, crouching to engage with the front rows but never using that oh to easy device of embarrassing the audience. This is gentle, she welcomes us to recognise in ourselves her own experiences and shortcomings.
All this talk of her being gentle, and dare I say homely, comes with a relentless stream of bad language and filth. She certainly has a potty mouth as the saying goes, but few could employ the “C” word and make it sound like an acceptably jolly bon mot. Eclair does, and does it with charm.
Her career has it seems had rocky moments, failures and cancellations but her ambition to be famous drives her on and she is certainly not work-shy. And along side the gigs, tours, TV shows and even Get Me Out Of Here she manages to find a partner, have a much loved daughter and deal with becoming and loving being a grandmother.
There are moments of genuine anger at the state of things and with people but it is never vicious, almost forgiving, and she is not a man hater, more a forgiver of man’s weaknesses and stupidity.
Illustrated throughout by a series of slides, some times referring to the fact that they are indeed prompts for her to keep on track, the evening passes by on a cloud of sometimes gentle but more often uproarious laughter. I ended my evening sore from grinning and aching from laughing. If I had one moment that completely floored me it was a passage that ended up with a mention of baker Paul Hollywood. Please don’t ask me to explain!
Jokes, jokes, jokes she says but this is so much more, this is a life story littered with love, lust, lunacy and laughter.
Andrew Kay
23 March
Theatre Royal Brighton
Rating:
