Abigoliah Schamaun has been painted as caustic, controversial and not for the faint of heart. Some of this is true: the jokes are huge and boisterous, the subject matter more than a little risque, but this is all accompanied not only by a keen intelligence and wicked sense of humour but a knack for turning a sad story into a touching comedic shrug. Schamaun is wildly alive and blisteringly honest, and her ability to put a hilarious spin on life's biggest tragedies is a rare one.
The show could prove unsuitable for some, but nowhere near as caustic and offensive as some critics may have led you to believe.
Following her father's death, Schamaun and her family unearthed folders full of mementos from their own lives. Until her teenage years, Schamaun Senior had been taking notes of the funny questions his daughter asked, saving school reports and photographs and home videos. Now, Schamaun the comedian is all grown up, has an excellent quiff, and bounds onto stage in a polka dot corset and an enormous purple tutu, full of a love for her family rivalled only by her passion – and skill – for talking about sex.
Don't let the baby pictures and the seven-year-old’s wishlists fool you: this is a show brimming over with dirty talk, graphic sex stories and more than a few visceral sound effects for good measure. What sets Schamaun apart though, is that these jokes are not the most important part of her show. They are not thrown in for shock value, neither are they there to draw the crowds- rather, they let us see just another side of this comic whose fearlessness has been compared to that of Frankie Boyle and George Carlin, but who now holds a fragment of her father’s writing like a precious stone in her tattooed hands.
The two worlds colliding makes for great comedy in itself: one moment we're giggling over the misguided fashion of a twelve-year-old, the next we're cringing along with Schamaun as she tells us about corrupting youthful audience members and the ins and outs of threesomes. The show could prove unsuitable for some, but nowhere near as caustic and offensive as some critics may have led you to believe. Take your drinking buddies, your sex buddies and your parents, and you may get to know all of them a little better for it.
