Review: Frances Keyton: Shrew (WIP), Camden Comedy Club

Ever since themed standup shows became par for the course, it’s rare that a comedian will tackle a subject that’s completely original, though Frances Keyton comes close with Shrew. The only similar example is a quite famous one, as her show bears a resemblance to the popular podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno because, well, Frances’ dad wrote a very adult novel and there’s no getting away from that fact. Yet while that’s a fair aspect of the show, there’s a lot more going on here which provides strong laughs throughout.

Kicking off with an explanation of how she’s in a long distance relationship, the first half of the set explores why that is, along with discussion of her previous dating experiences and relationships with toxic men. This is also familiar ground that many a comedian has covered before, but impressively Keyton nearly always avoids the obvious joke and takes us to unusual destinations, leading to many a laugh out loud moment. The same applies when she talks about the places she’s worked before, and there’s some really fascinating insights in to her job as an actress at a pirate themed attraction.

While these subjects are tenuously linked, such material feels necessary as it provides context for how she feels about life, love and sex. Because, while the discovery of her father’s penchant for X-rated prose understandably caused her to feel a little queasy initially, that soon dissipated for one very simple reason – the book itself is full of ridiculously overblown metaphors and similes and impossible to take seriously. Previously a fantasy writer, this is his first foray into erotic material, but hopefully not his last as, while it’s doubtful anyone would consider his work arousing, it is incredibly funny. Everything you might imagine about sex (and possibly a lot more) is clumsily handled in the novel, and half of the time Keyton doesn’t even need to have a wry comment or observation to make after reading an example as it’s such pleasingly daft stuff.

Work in progress shows from comedians are always tricky things to review as you know you’re not getting the finished product, and normally I’d expect new material to be tested out for the first time, or for the narrative to not have a completely satisfying ending, but that wasn’t the case here. The only disappointing aspect was that it came to a close after just over half an hour, as she confessed she’d run out of material. Due to this I can’t recommend it caveat free, but apart from being too short it was a pleasure to spend time hearing about this quite mad but very funny tale.

Written and directed by Frances Keyton

Shrew has completed its run at Camden Fringe.