I was so ready to tear this show down. I had essentially already written the review, I was only really going to the show for validation. I mean, a comedy show about rape? Involving nudity? You may as well write ‘trainwreck, come here to watch’, right? Wrong. So wrong.
No doubt Adrienne Truscott cuts a controversial figure, sashaying on stage, half naked, unashamed, swigging from a can of G&T. Her vagina certainly features prominently in her set, and is used for a variety of purposes, the most publishable of which is as a goatee/beard for a variety of faces that are projected onto Truscott’s stomach. It would very easy to see this show as crass, mindless, needless, and just plain stupid. However, to do so, I feel, would be to ignore the purpose of the show.
Truscott, remaining fiercely in character as a girl who is ‘asking for it’ (hence the nudity), tries to tackle the almost impossible subject of rape in comedy. She examines the attempts of other comedians to incorporate it, and also uses the show to make light of and deride the worrying attitudes towards rape by many in her homeland of America. While avoiding the idea of rape itself being funny (something she attacks with characteristic vitriol), she uses ideas in modern culture about rape - its prevention, its causes - to create a comedy set and indeed a show that works.
This is when many aspects of the show start to click. The nudity, while challenging, is there ostensibly for the purpose of making the character the epitome of ‘asking for it’. As Adrienne says at the end of the show, ‘it looks like there are no rapists in the audience!’. Her point is that no one, not even someone as ridiculous as this character, is asking for it. Nudity can be things other than sexual: it can be funny. (If you don’t agree, wait until you’ve seen Justin Bieber with pubes for a beard.)
You might think that Truscott uses the fact that she is a woman as an excuse to talk about rape and, certainly, she explores this idea, even stating that ‘in comedy, rape is the new black’, but that is not what she is doing at all. This show is right on the bullseye, and that bullseye is cutting to the quick of a misogynistic society. Truscott has achieved the impossible, and, in a crazy, crazy way that shouldn’t work, has made a brilliant show. Painfully ironic, visually and conceptually challenging, eye-wateringly biting, and, most important of all, very funny, all this show requires is an open mind and a sharp instinct for parody and sarcasm. This show is by no means for everyone but if you reckon you can handle it, you should definitely go.
