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Camden Fringe
With energy, edge and humour, F*ck Toys delivers an empowering feminist message, mixing different performance mediums to provocatively confront patriarchy.Summary
Rating
Excellent
Everyone jams in tight to Camden Comedy Club, a small room above the Camden Head, for this performance of F*ck Toys. The closeness adds to the anticipation as the show begins, with Savannah Beckford taking to the stage to perform stand-up comedy.
However, F*ck Toys is not a normal stand-up show. It mixes stand-up with dramatic and comedic scenes and pieces of physical theatre. The two performers come down from the stage and key moments take place amongst the audience. This blurs the line between different performance mediums.
F*ck Toys is frank about sex and the pressure placed on women. It is overtly feminist, addressing gender roles, sexuality, consent and sexual liberation. The show has something to say and says it loud and clear for everyone to hear.
Performed by Lucy Eve Mann, who is British, and Beckford, an American, who lead at different moments, F*ck Toys seamlessly weaves its different mediums together. A plot emerges about two long-term friends who lure men to a violent end, thus striking a blow against the patriarchy. Beckford gives details of how they came to the UK, and a picture of their character gradually comes together. A stronger narrative would tie the show together better and provide a more tangible emotional journey, but the chaotic structure adds to the sense of anticipation, as anything could happen next.
F*ck Toys is very funny, with jokes that are both provocative and astute; from Beckford opening one segment of stand-up with: “Anyone into shit play?” to riffs on the expectations placed on women. There is a high density of gags that are delivered with an infectious wit.
Short dramatic scenes fill in the back story of the characters and convincingly capture what it is like to be a young woman standing at the edge of sexual awakening, whilst beginning to question the strict gender roles that society has carved out. This culminates in a devastating final scene, which is both hilarious and sad.
There is a sharp political argument, with palpable anger directed against the fine line that women are forced to walk between being saintly virgins and dirty whores. It aims at the pressures put on women to make men happy and desire them, the double standards that are applied and the toll this takes. The suffering caused by patriarchy is viscerally laid bare by both drama and comedy.
F*ck Toys is powerful but, more than that, it has edge. It is full of punk energy and is even dangerous, in the way of great political art. It is confrontational, has real passion behind it and is full of anger at injustice, whilst giving the characters the agency to take control of their lives and sexuality.
This is the essence of fringe theatre; daring, full of energy and it makes the problems of society apparent. It’s too raw to be on the West End, but the Camden Fringe is the ideal home of art that is dangerous and pushes boundaries.
I ran a full gauntlet of emotions watching this small show that has a big impact. F*ck Toys delivers a shout in a small, crowded room above a pub in Camden that has been echoing in my head ever since.
Written by: Savannah Beckford and Lucy Eve Mann
F*ck Toys has completed its run at Camden Fringe.
