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Medico

 
Sascha Cooper Review by Sascha Cooper 4 Published: 17 May 2022 Laughing Horse @ Caroline of Brunswick Show Dates: 14 May 2022-18 May 2022

Medico brought a new twist to a one woman stand up comedy show by bringing a medical slant to the proceedings. Dr Stefania Licari made her comedic debut with this special show based on her own experiences on the frontline and finding love in the minefield of being an Italian doctor in the UK. By using real life experiences, it made Medico an experience that was part medical lecture and a confessional, with saucy humour in places adding a layer of humanity to the show.

drama, comedy and risqué humour

Licari creates an alter ego for herself called Dr Anna LaRosa, who has a pleasant enough nature, but the passionate fire of a bull. She invites us into her world and compared Italian and British traditions with style, using a small set that includes a medical skeleton, a patient bed, a catheter and more, all utilized with ease as she flips between her personal life her journey as a doctor. The way it is done is subtle and to the point, as she shows via her comedic suggestions the way the medical profession can work, yet crossed over into her personal life as well. At times, some of the medical terms she used within the jokes fell a little by the wayside, but she managed to pull them back with a winning smile and cheekily stating that it was a medical joke, which made us laugh heartily from here on in.

What made Licari's style of comedy different from many shows of this nature was the way it was constructed to include drama, comedy and risqué humour with a strong storyline, and the amount of research that went into the whole experience. But it was the characters she came across as lovers that really made things come to life as she balanced life and work on stage. A particular highlight was a blood doctor who had a deep voice due to a nodule in his throat, which drove her wild with desire until he had it removed. As she did with all her lovers, she finished the relationship with a clever repetitiveness of the phrase 'Basta! Basta! Finito! Finito!', making her extremely memorable.

Medico was a never-to-be-forgotten experience for the right reasons leaving a newfound appreciation of what doctors and nurses in both the NHS and private sectors do for us.

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The Blurb:

In her debut solo show MEDICO, Italian NHS intensive care doctor and award-winning comedian (yes, she really is both), Dr Stefania Licari offers a hysterical and moving exploration of the medical world, immigration and what it means to become British. Told through the eyes of her alter-ego Dr Anna LaRosa (previously seen in online series MY DOCTOR’S ADVICE), MEDICO marries physical gags, ribald humour and true stories from the medical frontline with Stefania’s own experience as an Italian doctor in the UK. You may laugh or cry, but one thing is guaranteed: you will never look at doctors in the same way again. MEDICO stars Stefania Licari and is co-devised and directed by Chris Head.