Ania Magliano: I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This
NAC
Ania Magliano warms up the crowd with a short set as her own support act. She is immediately engaging and hugely personable, with a cheerful, amiable demeanour that quickly wins over a seemingly likeminded audience.
Early on she warns us that she is suffering from an illness, one side effect of which is sudden nosebleeds, and that should she experience one of these tonight, it is definitely not part of the show. Establishing what is, and what is not, part of the show, is a central theme of a masterful display of both writing and performance.
The opening set is brief and conversational, with a rambling, improvised quality which does not, however, prevent the introduction of some key themes: Magliano refers to her therapist in passing and also expresses both a fascination with the practice of confession within the Catholic church, and her confusion that this is done privately, and not as some form of centrepiece to services.
She returns after the interval to perform an hour-long set which is a deftly constructed masterclass in showing rather than telling. I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This is ostensibly about a haircut gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, this subject matter forms a relatively small proportion of the performance, which turns out to entail an ambitious, but expertly realised, examination of human interaction in an extremely broad range of circumstances: boxing classes, an aborted threesome, a dispiriting volunteering experience, the perils of voice notes, and breast reduction surgery all feature, amongst other scenarios.
The subject matter is at times straight-forward stand material (for example, a great routine about Biblical gossip) and at other times makes reference to a traumatic event in Magliano’s life. The full extent of the sensitive, thoughtful manner in which these shifts in tone are achieved is only really apparent to me when the performance ends, and I’m left with far more to contemplate than it would be reasonable to expect an hour-long comedy performance to be able to provide.
That this is done at the same time as providing a string of excellent jokes, delivered with an incredible warmth and grace, only heightens the remarkable achievement of I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This. It’s been a privilege to witness such an expert display.
