THEY say doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, is the definition of madness, but what happens when authority figures force you to restate you position over and over again, ad infinitum?
Are they mad? Have you lost the plot?
In the case of Sophie Garrad’s sophomore solo show at the Fringe, “A Period Drama” (Pleasance, Ace Dome), it’s perhaps a bit of both. Her show recounts her experience living with endometriosis, pregnancy loss, and fertility headaches – immediately incinerating expectations of a costumed, haughty period drama.
Garrad proceeds to tell her audience in glorious detail about banging her head against contradictory diagnoses, doubting doctors, a Ricky Gervais-inspired anaesthetist, an alarming surgery and a terrifying lack of information about her condition.
Garrad’s fabulously vapid and vulgar sense of humour converts the frightening, confusing ordeal into a razor-sharp and bitingly funny comedic odyssey.
The audience, which tended towards gynocracy, was rapt as Garrad sifted through her trauma with sadistically funny jokes about Princess Diana and Gonnohrea, babies and “goal weights”, and tax avoidance.
It felt less like tiptoeing through a minefield of difficult, thorny topics, and more like floating above a swamp, giddy, making nasty jokes about being bogged down there in a previous life.
Of course, the show’s core is really quite serious: very little research has so far been conducted into endometriosis and diagnosis rates remain extremely poor, with doctors regularly dishing out dreary advice like “go back on the pill” rather than offering meaningful support.
Indeed, when a doctor claims to Sophie – after her journey has been recounted – that she does not have endometriosis and should again try the pill, a collective groan was emitted from the crowd.
Its’s a moment of collective madness, and the audience’s empathy threatens to release Garrad’s tender side from behind the bejazzled sippy cup towards the end of the show.
This is, of course, dished back to the audience for one of the biggest laughs of the show, and the set is concluded abruptly after Garrad provides a moment of catharis – getting her own back on one of the show’s dastardly men.
Garrad’s compelling stage presence and commitment to her “morally bankrupt” persona makes the show tick, and she keeps the crowd with her even as some of her material threatens to wear thin.
Sophie Garrad’s Period Drama is showing at the Pleasance’s Ace Dome at 6:50pm until 30 August.
