Emma McAlpine reviews Nat Luurtsema's debut solo show.
Nat Luurtsema is one of my favourite female comics. Not only is she a very likeable performer, one you feel you could have a great natter with (indeed, I even uncharacteristically volunteered a question during the show), but she has a charmingly offbeat imagination that causes her to envisage some amusingly surreal scenarios from riding a granny to getting an ant drunk. The school desk she uses as a prop here is quite apt: you can imagine her daydreaming in class about all sorts of silliness with a big bubble over her headlike a female JD from Scrubs.
Entitled In My Head I’m a Hero, Luurtsema’s debut show is loosely based around her being a fantasist and dreaming about saving the world while struggling to cope with the real one. The second and best half of it surrounds her unusual childhood where, as a bright but rather solitary girl, she won a scholarship to a Masonic school and developed an eating disorder at the age of 13.
The subject of the show is very much about Luurtsema’s head and her thoughts, but it can get a bit too cerebral at times. Why she developed the disorder is hazy and having been open and chatty up until this point, switching to the third person to tell her story, only serves to distance us from it. Narrative quibbles aside, there are some delightful moments that suddenly emerge from the dreamy patter and take you by surprise. The clear highlight is an old videotape of her school marching drills, which share worrying similarities to the Hitler Youth. There are also some brilliant laugh-out-loud lines like “we made the hungry hippos look fussy” that demonstrate an imaginative wit and flair for writing.
While the show may not pack as many punchlines as her shorter circuit sets, considering Luurtsema has recently come up with a whole new hour for her debut, rather than relying on her best circuit material from the last three years, this is a very promising start. With a clearer narrative and more jokes, she'll be unstoppable.
Nat Luurtsema will be performing In My Head I’m A Hero at the Pleasance Joker Dome from 4th-30th August, at 3:45pm. For more details visit: www.avalonuk.com
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