Jessica Fostekew is in love with words. She loves playing with words, inventing new words, inventing new meanings for words and she particularly loves looking up the origins of words. So it is not a surprise that her show, Brave New Word, is themed on education and set on the last school day of a term.
Our day at Etymolly-College encompasses lessons in nominative determinacy, history and ‘anti-English’ which would, if it was ever a real subject, have made school a lot more fun. This is a good choice of structure, because even though her material is not on the whole ‘teachy’ it is funny when presented as such.
There is even a games lesson during which some lucky audience members get sweets for taking part and Fostekew does some remarkable improvisation, coming up with off the cuff etymologies for random words.
Fostekew has a wonderful voice and quite a few of the best laughs come from her simply saying a word in a particular way. She also possesses a knack for mimicry and it would have been good to see some more character comedy from her. The few characters she did were hilarious and well-acted.
With infectious enthusiasm and unapologetic silliness, this comedian fills her 55 minute show with fun and laughter and it is refreshing for at least some of the humour to require a little bit of thinking. This is definitely the show for you if you've ever found yourself reading the dictionary or thought some words sound so much more exciting than the thing they describe.
