The idea behind Julia Munrow’s one-woman show has the potential to be entertaining: a mother of two at the end of her tether after being taken advantage of by her husband, friends and kids turns to stand-up comedy to ‘stand-up’ (witty, eh) to her bullies. Sadly, though, what she delivered was an odd 45 minute mixture of energetic drama and bad jokes that all bore the hallmarks of somebody trying too hard.
None of the show seemed to come effortlessly, as good comedy does, but felt extremely rehearsed, so much so that sometimes it was difficult to even differentiate the gags from the filler due to their static delivery. At points Munrow did engage the audience’s interest with some almost panto-like interaction, but this felt too much like a forced attempt to break the stale air that filled the room for the majority of the set. Perhaps the most annoying part of the show was that it didn’t really culminate in anything particularly interesting. Although for me the show lacked any point at all, I assume the general impression we were to glean from character ‘Sam Foxton’ and her monologue was that she was a pathetic middle-aged woman with no backbone, constantly feeling sorry for herself. Once this joke has been made, however, it gets old pretty fast. What’s more, I’d have hoped after so much of this same bit there would be some hilarious twist in the tale or a shocking conclusion (presumptuous, I realise, after the calibre of what I’d been watching) but unfortunately – and perhaps obviously - it never came.
Munrow does have a lot of acting experience and surely enough she was a confident performer with endless enthusiasm which was one of the only elements of the show that kept my watch checks to a minimum. A decent actress, yes, but a comedian she is not.
