The Fems
Camden People’s Theatre
Reviewed – 16th September 2017
” … out to change the world one audience member at a time, helping us all embrace our inner bastards, one hair barrette at a time”
In a shimmering and sparkling corner of ‘the swamp’ live The Fems, a dazzling bouffant clown group epitomising the dirty word of gay culture, a theatre of the dispossessed; the world of all things fem.
In a 65 minute kamikaze cabaret, The Fems (written and directed by Jonathan Richardson) bring us into their world. Tackling cultural issues to the ground with humour and style through a series of sketches. Daring, brash, yet never too serious, The Fems are out to change the world one audience member at a time, helping us all embrace our inner bastards, one hair barrette at a time; you can run but you can’t hide.
Costumes and set have a carnival-esque feel, being constructed and deconstructed in front of our eyes. Mixing the symbolic with the referential, The Fems explore what it means to be a Fem, and the issues that come with it, demonstrating once and for all, that it’s hard to be a Fem. Lines sometimes felt a little sketchy, and I’d love to see this piece with further development, but the occasional lack of polish serves the comedy, bringing a feeling of improvisation, flexibility and snappy stand-up wit; it is a show in which you feel anything could happen.
Accessible and enlivening, The Fems celebrates and discusses the complexities of femininity without risking exclusivity. Every member of the audience is included and entertained, and The Fems strong message of support and openness never risks preaching, always maintaining the balance between entertainment and activism. A hilarious and thought-provoking evening for anyone and everyone, The Fems bring us into a ‘living breathing organism of playful theatrical wonder’, bringing the Theatre of the Bouffon new relevance and importance in which the ‘others’ parody the ‘self’, the excluded deconstruct the included, in the grotesquely wonderful world of Fem.
Reviewed by Tasmine Airey
THE FEMS
was at Camden People’s Theatre as part of the
Come As You Are Festival
