Deborah Frances-White

Deborah Frances-White might make a significantly funnier alternative to the current spate of obnoxious TV lifestyle gurus

Review by Adam Knight | 17 Aug 2007

Are you a bad sitcom? Do aspiring actors barely glance at you in bars, confident in the knowledge that there are plenty other sitcoms in this world and what they really want to be in is a Scorsese movie? Deborah Frances-White poses these questions at the beginning of her show, and as the slightly forced metaphor eventually sinks in via liberal use of pie chart statistics, all the men begin to feel inadequate and the women like utter cows.

Part stand-up, part motivational lecture, How to Get Almost Anyone to Want To Sleep With You is an engaging show. Engaging in the sense that Frances-White manages to delve into the relationship complexities of almost every member of the front two rows, and then more. Frances-White is at her very best when talking to individual audience members, primarily due to the fact that she tends to shout when speaking to the entire room. During a bar pick-up role-play, she functions as a sort of shouty Trinny or Suzannah character, offering advice and cutting criticism for her hapless dating disasters as they try their hardest (bless 'em) to maintain an air of coolness, draped on a shocking pink love-seat. Indeed, she might make a significantly funnier alternative to the current spate of obnoxious TV lifestyle gurus.

Frances-White is a joy to listen to: inoffensive yet honest, informative yet amusing. The clashing of genres makes for an usual show – those expecting traditional stand-up will be a little lost – but for some sharp relationship satire with a personalised touch, you can’t go far wrong with this unusual little show.