Bridget Christie
The combination of personal anecdotes and irate bafflement at our current cultural, social and political mess works well
A warm, engaging evening of stand-up from Bridget Christie, who manages to combine a righteous anger at the deteriorating state of the wider world with a clear sense of contentment at her own mid-life non-crisis. On a personal level things clearly seem to have worked out well, and although she may occasionally have to stoop to eating a previously rejected Ikea cake out of the bin, she is unfazed when she notices that her gardener has caught her in the act.
Her disquiet at the social and political consequences of the rise of artificial intelligence are juxtaposed with an extended anecdote in which her phone inadvertently dictated an email to her local council and many of her neighbours, quoting her bra-shopping advice to her teenage daughter. Although the show is ostensibly themed around a bizarre meal she was once presented with, the section on the actual jacket potato pizza is short and doesn’t appear to be obviously thematically related to much of the other material. The menopause, forgetfulness, oestrogen and kidney stones all receive more attention, and her material is generally well received by a friendly, if not universally attentive, audience. On several occasions during the show Christie is distracted by people moving around near the back of the venue, and, although the event is sold out, there does appear to be a slightly stilted atmosphere at times.
There is some great material – I particularly enjoyed the imagined phone call with Melania Trump – but, although some broader themes (for example relating to power imbalances and abuses) are hinted at, I ended up wishing that these could have been developed further. The combination of personal anecdotes and irate bafflement at our current cultural, social and political mess does appear to work reasonably well, and Christie manages to move between seemingly disparate topics with ease. She’s done some internet-based research into her potential audience too, apparently unearthing the fact that the local area contains a particularly high proportion of dentist fetishists. Unsurprisingly, no one raises their hand when she asks if any are present tonight.
Although there is a concluding section in which a few of the loose ends are resolved, many aren’t, and I’m left with a sense that more could have been made out of an impressive range of material.
