Review: One Woman And Her Bitch, Etcetera Theatre

So many comedy plays rely on oddness as their engine, but this kind of humour is far harder to execute than it appears. Surreal jokes need to feel genuinely strange — surprising, even dark and a bit disturbing. When the oddness isn’t odd enough, or the darkness not quite dark enough, or the ideas not substantial enough, the result risks feeling less like well-crafted absurdist comedy and more like adults playing.

One Woman and Her Bitch is designed to be chaotic, provocative, and purposefully weird. Yet it often lands somewhere between a bit much and not quite enough.

Written by William Lyons — a philosopher and theatre academic specialising in the “theatre of the mind” — the play mixes classical Greek comedy, panto, modern political and cultural commentary, and nods to Beckett and Brecht. It is set in a version of London where painted landmarks sit alongside hand-drawn columns of ancient Greece, creating a liminal world that blurs the classical and the contemporary. This hybrid setting is one of the production’s most successful elements, subtly linking the mundanity of the present with the richness of mythic history and dissolving the hierarchy between them. Even the characters’ names reinforce this connection: Diogeneia (Katrin Mellinger), shortened to “Dodgey,” and her dog Cerberus (Emma Wilkes) level the streets of London with classical myth.

The central issue with the play is that its comic engine never really ignites. Much of the humour rests on the dynamic between the human–dog double act, and while there is a Beckettian symbiosis to their relationship, the affection they’re meant to share never fully reaches the audience. This is partly because the characterisations drift into discomfort: Cerberus’s animalistic behaviours — licking, biting, twitching are a bit unnerving, and Diogeneia’s occasional growling only heightens the awkwardness. The cast also don’t quite have the timing needed to lift the subtler jokes.

Even the attempts at harsher or more provocative comedy tend to misfire. Whenever other characters call Cerberus a dog, she insists on being called a “bitch,” a running gag that seems designed to revel in crudity but never feels especially daring or transgressive — just a bit uncomfortable. The costumes are visually quite challenging: latex yellow trousers layered over tartan tights and the peculiar dog outfit create an aesthetic that feels confrontational within the confines of a small venue.

The disconnect between cast and audience especially scuppers the show’s panto ambitions. Attempts at participation — including a plea for suggestions of different types of working dogs — fizzle out so that the performers end up answering their own questions. The interactive element isn’t established early enough for spectators to feel invited into the game, and by the time participation is requested, the cumulative effect of so many jokes failing to land has left the room too hesitant to respond.

A handful of songs punctuate the show, including ‘Give A Bitch A Bone’ and a closing lullaby lamenting humanity’s destruction of the world. These musical moments gesture toward deeper thematic intentions, yet they never quite develop into anything substantial. The production also brushes against the criminalisation of homelessness — most notably in Dodgey’s eventual arrest for vagrancy — but these instances remain fleeting, offering allusion rather than insight.

Despite an admirable effort, particularly given a last-minute cast change, the show’s intentional strangeness too often veers into incoherence, overshadowing both comic payoff and philosophical ambition. For a production built on big ideas and bold absurdity, One Woman and Her Bitch ultimately becomes a bizarre blur of half-formed concepts.

Written by William Lyons
Directed by Victor Sobchak

One Woman and Her Bitch has completed its current run.