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Queen Cunt: Sacred or Profane?

A muddled, inaudible and aimless mess about important stuff
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Queen Cunt: Sacred or Profane?

A muddled, inaudible and aimless mess about important stuff

Queen Cunt is a sketch show combining comedy, drag, song and 'the grotesque'. A series of scenes play out before a cloth backdrop built to resemble a vagina, and costume changes are filled by projected video clips in which a clitoris addresses the audience. So far, so Fringe.

The show purports to explore issues of consent and sexual assault while challenging the patriarchy; all important subjects which need to be addressed, but not like this. A woman with pretend lip filler and four breasts lopes around the stage, muttering inaudibly from under a mask. Two men's rights activists insult womankind and are unable to bring themselves to say the word 'feminist' out loud (an exasperated audience member shouts it out after an interminable wait, just to move things along). And two old ladies recreate a porno scene after dragging onstage two members of the crowd who then stand around aimlessly.

Even though one of the two volunteers has spent the entire show drunkenly lolling around in his seat, shouting out pissed-up, insulting nonsense at the performers, his stage-based humiliation still seems like steep penance for his crimes. It would usually be safe to bet that this is the only show in which a topless performer lactates over the crowd but, well, this is the Fringe.

Underbelly, Bristo Square, until 26 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 11.45pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).

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