Having never seen Alice Fraser before, I was apprehensive about what to expect from her comedy. Would she fall back on jokes about fuckboys and millennial culture for an hour, picking at her flaws for laughs as so many female comics do? I hoped not and was not left disappointed.
Alice Fraser: Twist is sublime, traversing the alien territory of being a mother and comedian, staying true throughout.
In fact, Alice Fraser: Twist is sublime, blindly traversing the alien territory of being a mother and a comedian, staying true and funny throughout.
Fraser is forced to reveal that she’s not a bad mother, though she does agree that motherhood has changed her; that she never used to be that comic. She never previously discussed body politics or gender, but now she must, for the sake of her sanity.
In this way, she talks out on the unfairness of a culture that overvalues the start-up bros of the world while devaluing the mothers who birthed them. Her metaphor about the working world being like having a go on the trampoline is sheer genius, succinctly demonstrating her understanding of how feminism f***ed us, and our children, by forcing us to outsource the world’s most important role - raising children.
Having worried that motherhood would make her less funny, Fraser mimics her audience’s own fears. Can she really make childbirth funny we wonder, when it’s all blood, goo and hormones? But, under oath from her friend to tell the birthing story, Fraser summons the courage.
What results is both hilarious and moving, and rather than being unrelatable, shows itself to be a fundamental part of our human experience – the origin story of every one of us – yet one that is rarely discussed. In telling her truth, we are forced to see the role of a mother and her value more clearly, without any note of sentimentality or smugness.
By breaking up the mature humour with light ad segments – where we’re pitched mad-hat products from an alternative dimension – Fraser creates a show that understands its depth while keeping us – and herself – as comfortable as possible.
The five stars then is for the bravery of taking on a subject that NO ONE talks about truthfully, of questioning where value lies in our culture, and of making motherhood funny.
Yes, there is a twist and yes, it did make me cry (I never cry).
