A optimistic, heartfelt and giddy trip through one young woman’s journey to selfhood.
Everything is everywhere all at once in Alex Franklin’s brain, an ADHD explosion of infinite possibility in which no logical cul-de-sac can be left unexplored.
A British, half-Chinese and trans stand-up comedian, Franklin has put together a beautiful, proud, intersectional hour. It bounces around ideas about family, identity, and belonging, and hangs off a subtle framework of specific philosophical thought experiments. It is, by turns, universally relatable, accessible, and life-affirming.
Our stand-up deals with the elephant in the room – the recent Supreme Court ruling – early on, and gets on with things in a joyous, silly, and faux-ramshackle way.
The Actors – Brighton’s best queer theatre venue – is perfect for Gurl Code, though the high stage and slightly nervous audience (there’s a bit of “are we allowed to laugh at this?”) initially leads to a physical and emotional distance between performer and audience.
This crevasse is soon crossed thanks to Franklin’s charm, gentle audience interaction, and a very funny but also extremely pertinent song about wanting to dominate women’s rugby, which makes it clear to those slow on the update that, oh yes, we are indeed allowed to laugh at this.
Highlights abound. This show is very clever and very stupid at the same time, a trick that’s easy to explain but difficult to pull off. Complex ideas like Mary’s Room and The Trolley Problem are played for laughs, with some of the best and smoothest Powerpoint Comedy currently available in the stand-up sphere, but are also taken entirely seriously, and form the philosophical backbone that helps this show pack an unexpectedly powerful punch.
Some comedians hide behind slides if their material isn’t funny enough, but here they form an essential part of the show, especially during a particularly hysterical section in which “male” silhouettes are both intelligently Reductio ad absurdum and also just plain, gloriously, stupidly dumb.
This visual element also helps with the fact that so much of our lives these days are lived through assorted messenger services and cryptic cross-generational emojis. Interactions with Franklin’s Dad are shown through WhatsApp messages. In other hands, this could seem gimmicky. Here, it’s the emotional heart of the show.
There are moments in this show where the occasional intensity-pause might be needed, so innovative are the jokes and so fast-paced and seemingly circuitous are the arguments and ideas.
Once section about an imaginary action-film scenario of coming out to a particular family member is one of the most beautifully realised IRL depictions of a fantastical and doomed thought process that I’ve ever seen, but it does leave sections of the audience gasping for breath and slightly struggling to keep up.
The pay-off, and the artist’s inherent likeability, make it all worthwhile, however. Gurl Code is a one-woman multiverse of gleeful possibility, and the world must batten down its hatches and await what glorious madness Franklin comes up with next.
Reviewed on 7th May.
The Reviews Hub Score
"A one-woman multiverse of gleeful possibility"
