If there is one thing to take away from Bridget Christie’s show at The Stand’s basement, it’s that Penguin should have their next Ladybird book publishing deal all lined up : Christie’s Ladybird Book of Brexit.
Despite insisting from the offset that she is absolutely not going to discuss Brexit, and will be dedicating her entire show to the thing that keeps her happy, gardening, it’s not long before we hear about the South American fuschia that is not taking all of the soil. There’s plenty of soil to go around.
Bridget Christie, having been on the comedy circuit for more than ten years, and the better half of comedian, Stewart Lee, confidently holds the show together, by simply not holding it together. Writer, actor and stand-up comic, the material is clearly there, the performance almost flawless and metaphors aplenty.
Her political, feminist show eventually steals any hope of a one about gardening as she reflects on why the BBC did not question the Leave-voter, post-Brexit, about his swastika tattoos. Considering the campaigns and media analysis of the EU referendum she asks herself that being a non-educated working class women, whether she herself is a racist, reminding the audience that the politicians and media are unforgiveable for the way that they treated what became a façade. Her focus on Michael Gove actually has the crowd howling, as she refuses to see him as a human with his inability to clap or even drink water. Her impersonations of this Leave campaigner has sides splitting, before she hits the lift and conveys her experience in it with one drunken Liverpudlian bloke. Now this is where we see Christie at her best, as she hones in on the confidence of this one tragic male.
Her ridiculing of The Daily Mail as they confuse a photograph of her dressed as Prince Charles II for Prince Charles II in battle is also worth mentioning, as she reminds us of the media’s fallacies.
The pinnacle of the show is when she reads from her version of a Ladybird book, the aforementioned Labybird Book of Brexit, which really hits home the lies, deceit, characters and consequences of the referendum.
Witnessing her desperation, humanity and sincere anger for the situation make anyone realise that a show about gardening from Christie is nothing more than a nice idea. The audience got what it wanted and anticipated; a reaction to politics today, it’s what Christie does best.
