Candy Gigi @ Monkey Barrel

In an hour that clashes repressive Jewish heritage with a manic egocentric quest for stardom, Candy Gigi’s Friday Night Sinner is a polarising hour of musical theatre come horror show – imagine Rosemary’s Baby with music. The show is bookended by a talking vagina that appears from behind the curtain like the presenter at a late night matinee. And, to its credit, quickly exposes the audience to the kind of content the show offers.

Gigi is a manic character whose desperate need for fame grows and grows as their sanity depreciates, all the while navigating religious and sexual quagmires. The desperate and bipolar nature of the character is alienating and hard to get on board with at the beginning. In this sense the show can split the room right down the middle: if you embrace the facets of the character you’ll certainly be entertained, but if you don’t engage with the maniac shouting obscenities before you, it makes for an hour that only builds in irritation.

Gigi’s performance, particularly the psychopathic expressions she produces, are striking and her energy is impressive in its intensity but it does more to annoy than entertain; the sheer depravity of the act often halts its enjoyment. The musical numbers feel generic and while ripe for parody, don’t really elicit many laughs. The songs, instead, serve more as road blocks in the narrative as you attempt to snap back into the story once the tunes have ended, making it all the more difficult to keep up with the megalomania.

---

Candy Gigi Presents – Friday Night Sinner!, Monkey Barrel Comedy (Monkey Barrel 5), until 25th Aug, 8.35pm, £6.50-£7/PWYW