BRIGHTON FRINGE: Sexiety – The Marlborough Theatre

Writers and performers: Anne Gehring, Vera Ketelaars, Gian van Grunsven
Music: Mark Nieuwenhuis
Director: Tatiana Partly
Reviewer: Glen Pearce

We Brits are somewhat reserved when it comes to talking about sex so perhaps what we need are three Dutch women, tow actresses and a journalist to coerce us to think about our sexual well being.

And that’s exactly what Anne Gehring and Vera Ketelaars do in Sexiety, although its so much more. Together with journalist Gian van Grunsven they overcome the British reserve, challenge us, make us feel slightly uncomfortable but at the same time share some deeply personal an motivating.

We learn that Gehring is getting married in two weeks yet is already bored of her sex life, wanting something more primeval. Ketelaars is already more primeval, a voracious hunter weighing up the Marlborough Theatre audience as potential conquests. Together they share their personal histories alongside that of the research they’ve undertaken with van Grunsven. van Grunsen acts as the voice of reason, part narrator, part lecturer, part referee, drawing on her experience of speaking to The Netherland’s many sex experts.

It’s a multi layered project that at times leaves its audience wondering where they are being led but it’s a carefully plotted journey, our unease slowly being replaced with a sense of community.

Part TED talk , part comedy, part confessional, Sexiety delves deeper than titillation, looking at what it actually means to be human.

We’re told at the start that if any Dutch accent issues causes problems to raise our hands but Gehring and Ketelaars show, as Brighton Fringe’s remarkable Dutch Season has shown, is that for truly successful theatre, language is no barrier.

Runs until 3 June 2017 at The Marlborough Theatre | Image: Contributed

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