Celya AB: We Must Stop Meeting Like This comedy review – An incomplete experience
A seemingly unfinished set throws shade on the French comic’s many talents
There’s an awful lot to unpack in Celya AB's latest show. But the normally wickedly witty French comic seems overburdened by the baggage she’s juggling. After musing on the separation anxiety of a celebrity baby, she considers validation in various forms. She ranges across her childhood and a backhanded compliment her father paid her; being an immigrant with a vested interest in stopping Reform; her sexual odyssey from self-imposed celibacy to mentally emancipating one-night stand; and, most haltingly, about whether she wants to continue with stand-up, listing the pros and cons of what had seemed to be her vocation.
A sense of incomplete transition pervades the set, which, at this preview, wrapped up disappointingly early. Archly funny when composed, delivering sly, damning putdowns of men and society, AB nevertheless touches on some dark subject matter, finding an easy balance between the bleak and the frivolous.
The big problem is that, at this stage, We Must Stop Meeting Like This never comes close to cohering into anything. AB shares some pretty pregnant thoughts, literally so in her assertion that having turned 30 she wants a baby. But she just leaves that lingering in the background, never once addressing it again. And while she ultimately pledges one aspect of her future, it’s not quite with the full-hearted conviction you might hope for, leaving plenty more questions than answers.
Celya AB: We Must Stop Meeting Like This, Monkey Barrel, until 30 August, 6.10pm.