★★★★✰
A rollicking look into Restoration comedy, Bang Average’s Dirty Corset is frequently filthy, funny and heartfelt. What it might sometimes lack in coherence or context it makes up for in the talents of its performers and commitment to bawdiness.
Following three actors performing “Restoration” comedy A Lord Named Brobert for audiences around Yorkshire, the piece utilises the traditional play—within—a—play format to satirise the period’s conventions whilst highlighting their impact on their performers. The tropes of gender-bending, sexually confident women and a good pair of calves are pulled from the show and into the lives of its actors: Isabinda McLovealot (Susannah Scott), Mary Moralless (Chloe Darke) and Neil Hasbeen (Laurie Coldwell).
The show relies on the comic chemistry between these three actors, as they cavort around the stage speaking excellently rendered cod—Restoration dialogue and engaging in cathartic movement pieces. Hasbeen’s grim conclusion that in 400 years little has changed resonates, as the play expertly delves into the gaps between performance and performer, audience and actor, and how these concepts can become clouded by the passage of time. Performativity is at the heart of this piece and executed expertly.
However, the piece is unafraid to delve deeper into their psychologies: McLovealot’s unrequited—but—not—unrequited love for Moralless, Moralless’ struggles with childbirth and Hasbeen’s rapidly decaying body. These produce some of the comic highlights of the piece (I shall simply warn you with the word: nose) whilst creating an emotional core that allows you to see these stereotypes as people, dragging them forwards from the past into the breathing present. At times some of the comedy is a tad overplayed (the vagina song, for one) but is swiftly reigned back by the connections between the characters. Bang Average’s chemistry as a devising company is assured, and each performer shines individually, in both the comic and tragic modes.
However it is here that the show slightly loses its way. It is initially a tad confusing as to what world we are in: true Restoration, parody Restoration, or some uneasy hinterland between the two. The performers do quickly inform us of the situation and the show renders itself into Nell Gwynn’s spicier cousin, but at times some important plot details were lost (at least for me) in the playfulness of the dialogue. Bang Average do however produce an excellent programme which filled in a number of gaps, and which I would highly recommend downloading if you go to the show.
Dirty Corset takes a bleeding, dirty, coarse and truthful stab at an artful period, imbuing it with the life that is sometimes lacking on the page. Whilst some plot elements are a bit tricky to unravel, you are carried along by the commitment of the actors, hilarity of the comedy, and darkness of what is left when you rip away the actor’s mask. It’s weird, wonderful and well—worth seeing.
Words by Issy Flower
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