In the appropriately multi-lingual halls of Espionage is this hidden gem of the Free Festival. Katerina Vrana is wholly, enthusiastically Greek, though the RP accent and the love of the British monarchy may fool you into thinking otherwise. Switching from English to Greek to shouty Muppet voices throughout, Vrana takes stereotypical Greek characteristics to their extremes in order to explain her country's developing financial crisis, as well as the media's complete lack of understanding of one of the world's oldest civilizations.
Cultural comedy aside, Vrana is a wonderful performer, with confidence by the bucket-load and an acute sense of her audience's wants, needs, and countries of origin.
Vrana discusses these cultural stereotypes at length, and the ex-pat comic genre comes alive in her hands. This joke is crafted for the locals, this for the tourists and the ex-pats, and this last joke, the inspired piece in which she distills each country into the form of an unruly child, is for everyone. While many comics from foreign shores will give us the outsider perspective, Vrana speaks both from Greece and from the UK experience, playing the stereotypes against each other with sauce and insight in equal measure.
From the Sternly Worded Letter to public tutting, Vrana has the Brits down to a tee and still admits that she has adopted one or two of our mannerisms after years of living in the English capital. In herself she is similarly double-sided: incisive and theatrical at one moment, giggling and self-deprecating the next. Cultural comedy aside, Vrana is a wonderful performer, with confidence by the bucket-load and an acute sense of her audience's wants, needs, and countries of origin. More than anything, though, she has a plan for life- get into the palace, get into power, start sorting things out. I look forward to the day when she becomes undisputed Queen of the world, and blesses her people with jokes and with feta.
