Bebe Cave @ Pleasance Dome

Bebe Cave's new show Swoon is a veritable feast, a riotous, headlong sprint through the story of the pre-Raphaelites and the women they used and abused. The show's guiding spirit may be Lizzie Siddal, the brotherhood's redhead muse, but it's with Bertrude, the lesser-known (ie purely invented) Siddal sister that the real energy resides.

Cave appears first as languorous Lizzie, and then as earnest, enthusiastic Bertrude, whose head is turned by the brotherhood, boiled down here to the core group of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Cave plays all three, via some rapid-fire hat work; reinventing the brotherhood as modern day bros. Dante is a self-serious Carhartt type with a penchant for spoken word posturing ('I'll say what's in my head, girls are hot when they're skinny and dead'), Millais is a nasal homeboy, and ponderous Holman Hunt brings up the rear.

Going to desperate lengths to catch their attention, Bertrude ends up languishing in Bedlam, where she is scolded by the Brontë sisters for her obsession with male approval. Bertrude's belated recognition of the importance of sisterhood allows Cave to pull in some sly meta-commentary about her own sibling rivalry (her older sister Jessie Cave is also a comedian and an actor). She's obviously having a lot of fun with this show, whisking through at least 11 different characters at top speed. And in the face of the ongoing cultural infatuation with impassive, skinny girls, there could scarcely be a better celebration of gung-ho energy and expressivity.

---

Bebe Cave: Swoon, Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), until 30 Aug (not 18), 5.40pm; extra shows 25 Aug, 8.20pm and 27-28 Aug, 11pm