As you walk into
It’s hard not to be won over by her.
She jokes that dancing at the start of the show turned out to be a terrible idea, lies on the floor while a member of the audience frees her from the shackles of her morph suit and then starts her set with the same amount of energy displayed in her dancing. And it is this commitment to her stand-up that makes Bea special to watch.
Starting with her childhood up to present day, Bea’s show roughly centres around her childhood dream of 'being an American', proceeding to get into drama school in London and eventually failing to make it as a Hollywood actor. But Bea willingly goes off on tangents, covering subjects from the more broad – such as recent equal marriage referendum in Ireland – to more personal – such as her hilariously negative friend Mary.
Although Bea makes fun of her time at drama school (‘So much mime’ she jokes, rolling her eyes back), her dramatic roots are obvious from the start. She has such physicality on stage, using every limb in her body to her advantage and covering every square inch of her stage while she does it. Add this to a range of impressions, accents and facial expressions, it’s easy to see why Bea makes people laugh without saying a single word.
The show is also littered with the best aspects of what we’ve come to expect from Bea. Her fast-talking, snappy dialogue will make any story of hers worth listening. Her self-awareness and self-deprecation is undoubtedly at its best here, with an ending that will leave your jaw open and your shoulders shaking with laughter.
Admittedly Bea’s set is far from flawless; there patches that, while amusing, don’t produce the laughs intended and Plan Bea isn’t her near flawless performance on Russell Howard’s Good News. Yet Bea has energy and stage presence to spare that it’s hard not to be won over by her.
