A bejazzled clunge? A muff, minge, vadge, landing strip or front bottom? Ah, it’s just too much fun delving in the dirty dictionary of lady slang but that’s probably enough for now. Let’s meet the Fannytasticals.
It’s collegiate, intricate to an almost bee-like degree, and the Fannys are tight, if you don’t mind me saying.
Convened in time for last year’s International Women’s Day by director Sarah Davies, the six strong Fannys are an all-female sketch revue, clad terrifyingly in matching tee shirts of hen party pink. Their mission: to conduct piratical raids into the dark waters of contemporary womanhood.
And just as this is work that needs to be done, they also know it needs to be fun. It’s not quite Carry On but more of a genital Jurassic Park: there are dinos in the form of periods, STDs, masturbation, the horrors of pregnancy and giving birth to tamed and naughty chauvinist baddies – usually cast in a more working class mould than the Alan Rickman type. It’s all very well done and reassuring, because the dowdy spectre of feminism is kept well behind the safety rails. Most of us are considerably frightened of Virginia Woolf and although the Fannytasticals lampoon Disney princesses and the median level of unreconstructedness in your average female, they prefer to laugh at themselves and to bring a healthy slice of comfy personal testimony to the party.
The performance ebbs between well drilled show tunes which are beautifully sung, played and choreographed, ongoing mini-scenarios and moments when individuals do it stand up style. It’s collegiate, intricate to an almost bee-like degree, and the Fannys are tight, if you don’t mind me saying. There’s no Beyoncé in this Destiny’s Child, which again is a relief. The home crowd was on side from the start and patient when the material was less sharp. What we were left with was a positively epidural glow and a sense that these guys are onto something when their craft, particularly their music, is in the driving seat. Gonorrhea! sung to the tune of Mamma Mia! is an abiding memory. Go see it – it’s immense fun. But now let’s hand the dirty dictionary over to older women, younger women, women of colour, women of faith and even horny handed men and we’ll plunge together deeper, ever deeper into that forbidden forest.
