Karen Sherrard - A Fete Worse than Death

Karen Sherrard: A Fête Worse Than Death

Karen Sherrard - A Fete Worse than DeathA Fête Worse Than Death transports us from sunny seaside Brighton to the annual summer fete in a soggy Welsh village, where proceedings are managed by the formidable village matriarch and there is a special guest appearance from Charlie Dimmock-alike celebrity gardener Esmé de Flange. The fourth wall is nowhere to be seen, and each character turn is bookended by a video or slideshow. Karen Sherrard’s gentle character comedy is best described as a collection of thematically linked stand-up routines. Her broadly drawn women would all be right at home on a BBC sketch show. The entire hour is a nostalgic retreading of harmless, if obvious, British comedy tropes.

Easy laughs are found in the Welsh weather, the literal nature of the annual Tractor Pull, the spectacularly rubbish raffle prizes. Esmé the oversexed daytime TV personality and her closeted husband are an exercise in entendre that is linguistically impressive, but a randy middle-aged woman pawing at random young men because she doesn’t get enough attention from the secretly gay man she is married to isn’t so much a joke as a very dated social trope that I thought we’d evolved beyond.

Sherrard is a likeable performer, her delivery brings to mind Victoria Wood’s cuddly routines and the video/slide show interludes do enhance the running jokes. Especially popular with the audience was a series of astoundingly anatomical-looking photographs of unusual plants. A horticultural Readers’ Wives if you will.

The denouement, the Grand Raffle, brought out an unanticipated competitive side to the audience, with participants taking the brilliantly ridiculous prizes maybe a little too seriously.

A Fête Worse Than Death never really lives up to the promise of its punning title, but it’s a pleasant show built on easy laughs, though the politics could do with updating.

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About Sophie London

Sophie London is built on Film Theory and Theatre Practice. She has been a theatre technician and some time stage manager for the last decade, working on everything from one woman shows in subterranean sweatboxes to Olivier-winning West End musicals. She always comes back to Fringe and new writing though. Sophie periodically lends her services as a Marketing type to Theatre Royal Stratford East. Find her on Twitter @solosays