Jessie Cave says she would like to be remembered as a “fun mum”, which we certainly get a
The laughter comes in smatters.
glimpse of in An Ecstatic Display at Assembley Roxy.
Cave is dressed like a 90s children’s show presenter and in the centre of the sizable stage is a handmade shadow puppet theatre, which she also accompanies with toys, paper aeroplanes, canvases that she’s painted her and her partner’s faces on, bubble blasters, and a hand-painted storybook. There’s a lot to contend with and that’s before getting to the topics she broaches which mainly revolve around her on/off relationship with her partner and father of her children.
Cave describes their relationship as one between “an emotionally unstable star sign believer
and a bipolar alcoholic,” and through the couple’s imagined therapy sessions, she shows how
they seem to largely be incompatible.
Cave gets tongue-tied a lot and twice when she messes up a punchline and throws herself
on the stage, much like a child having a tantrum, but she has such a likeable presence, we
encourage her on through cheering. The laughter comes in smatters, though there’s really
not much to chuckle at, as Cave excavates the last few years of her life including the death
of her younger brother. There’s more of a collective feeling of wanting things to go well for
Cave, both on stage and in real life.
