Coco The Time Travelling Tart comedy review: History’s naughtiest tour guide
The viral sensation moves from online gallery tours to the stage as creator Max Norman delivers a riotous, audience-powered romp through history
Coco The Time Travelling Tart has become a huge online hit, with more than 30 million views of her irreverent gallery tours where she basically wanders up to people and starts chatting about art and history and all that stuff (the AGSA tours sold out weeks ago). This world premiere is Coco’s first outing as a standalone comedy show, a chance for a bigger audience to travel through time with an absolute top slut. On a Saturday night in Adelaide, you’re not going to get a better invitation.
‘History is chaos and fucking’, declares Coco. If Mrs Marshall had opened with that in Year Eight, I might have paid a bit more attention. It’s clear that Max Norman, Coco’s creator, had his listening ears turned on, though, because the show is full of historical detail, the kind you just can’t fudge. But we’re here for the laughs rather than the lesson and this is a highly participative show. Audience members are given jobs to do, so we jump in the taxi together to travel back through time, meeting various obstacles along the way as well as learning more about Coco’s approach to life (drink champagne and taste the forbidden fruit, basically). It’s a total romp, at its best when the audience are up on their feet and fully involved. Some stops fly by a little too quickly; perhaps having fewer but making each one really count would help the flow of the show. Still, Coco’s a character with legs and a whole space-time continuum to play with and that’s a taxi that’s worth hailing.
Coco The Time Travelling Tart continues at the Yurt at the Courtyard of Curiosities at the Migration Museum until 22 March.