Katie Norris is wicked, delusional, spicy, and hilarious in her unapologetic rant about being an old soul mid-30s woman. Katie barks to the crowd (mostly the men) as she takes you through her stand-up, musical show honouring her late father. Tribute shows to dead parents are nothing new in the arts. But Katie’s spin on this cliché certainly is.
Katie is clear from the start that she would much rather be the godmother than an actual mother. But to make her argument totally clear, she bursts into song. It’s theatrical, witchy, and weird, and scares just about every man in the crowd as she warns them of what happened to her exes (all I shall say is they live at the bottom of her garden).
The songs act as little intermissions between topics. It gives her time to dip in and out of different personas, blurring the lines, to make you think, “Is this an act? Or is she actually this crazy?” I still don’t know. But luckily, if you are a woman, you are shielded more from her crazy side. Katie is not shy and illustrates her sometimes awkward, sensual power and evident hatred for men. During the show, these two topics sometimes blur, as the men who can drive are praised, and those who aren’t, I assume, are cursed by just one look.
Katie takes you through her rather unusual grieving process, which includes hobbies like taxidermy; she got herself into this “stuff” after her father’s death. Before the crowd is even done laughing or comprehending her “artwork”, the Q&A for how a sassy squirrel is made is over, back in the Victorian-esque suitcase it goes. She then whips out of her Mary Poppins-like trick bag, a play her father wrote for BBC Radio 4 . Katie encourages some brave audience members to join her on the stage to act out the play, honouring her father.
Katie embraces her own eccentricities and challenges the norms around motherhood, offering a hilarious perspective on what it means to be a 35-year-old woman living alone, that is NOT Bridget Jones. Her unapologetic healing process from grief, combined with her theatrical flair, leaves the audience perhaps a little frightened but more so in fits of laughter.
Katie Norris: Go West, Old Maid 19.40, Pleasance Courtyard, until August 24
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/katie-norris-go-west-old-maid
