THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CLOWN SLUT

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF CLOWN SLUT

Local Girl Productions at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch

14.10.13

for The Public Reviews

Joanna Griffin's Clown Slut loves to dance – she's always liked dancing, from the year 7 disco to the old people's home. She's also very often uncomfortable. Not just when she's enduring a 20% off bikini wax, or the subsequent cheese and onion pasty down her knickers.

But uncomfortable about the laddish banter that greets her at uni, the sexist assumptions implicit in the themed nights in the Students' Union – CEOs and Corporate Hoes, the foxy farmyard. She's uncomfortable about feminism too, with all its stereotypes, can hardly bring herself to say the word.

And it's this confusion that this piece expresses so successfully.

In truth it's more stand-up than drama, but the character is so believably drawn, so honestly acted, that we are compelled to care about the issues she confronts, and, as she says, "have a little think".

There are some excellent comedy riffs – the aforementioned visit to the bargain basement beauty salon, the nightmare in the chemist's, the office party, the kebab shop. Clown Slut's confusing world is peopled by characters who, like her, are only known by nicknames – Beanie Boy, the likeable Scottish lad she bonds with at uni and eventually moves in with, the gaggle of girls: Hunter, Glugger, Two-Stepper and Shotmonster. Only the boring Maureen and Clive at work have a proper name …

Clown Slut herself is easy to sympathise with. She's touchingly innocent [three trips to Magaluf notwithstanding]. We share her outrage in some of the heavier rants, and her horror at the prospect of being stuck on the fast track, wearing the noose of predictability, as the dancing stops.

But our girl is not buying into any of that – not motherhood, not breast-baring activism. She'll be a guerilla groover, keep looking for the dance floor, be a superhero unfettered by conformity.

Among the fringe venues at which this unique show has been seen are universities where young women, and young men, will be confronting exactly these attitudes. It's an inspired way of helping them make empowering choices and, like Clown Slut, stay true to themselves.

The Incredible Adventures of Clown Slut, devised and performed by Joanna Griffin, was directed for Local Girl Productions by Lauren Bracewell.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews