A scrappy, occasionally sublime show from an assured stand-up performer.
Londoner Su Mi is coarse, loud, and occasionally dressed as a shark. Anyone who has had the pleasure to see her perform over the past couple of years knows she’s a vital presence, with brilliant songs, surreal characters, and charm in bucket loads.
Here, stretched over an hour on a hungover bank holiday Monday, it doesn’t quite work. Su Mi is not helped by the lukewarm crowd and sleepy tech support; the overall narrative doesn’t quite hang together, and the transitions between bits are slightly too long and impact the energy in the room.
It feels there are two different shows here, both with the potential to be excellent, welded together like a cut ‘n’ shunt of a Ford Escort and Fiat Punto.
The Ford Escort is the artist’s own story, where she finds her own tribe, and we are introduced to her badass tiny Malaysian cockney geezer mum and photographs of Su Mi as an adorable child and (her words not mine) hot teenager.
There is a lovely song about 1990s nostalgia, which everyone joins in with, and there is a much less lovely but still incredible song about racist men on the dating scene.
This is a show about subverting expectations and joyfully rejecting stereotyping, with a lust for life that is affecting and contagious. Su Mi is a deeply singular person who makes her experiences feel beautifully universal.
This is also a character comedy show, and it is these sections that form the metaphorical Fiat Punto.
Not that there’s anything wrong with character comedy, or even Fiat Puntos for that matter (I don’t know anything about cars). It’s just performing as a used tissue, or a randy repressed American corn, is brilliant if it’s a ten minute bit on a mixed bill, but is jarring when interspersed with the more heartfelt and personal material.
Or, at least, it is tonight, and that might be the fault of the aforementioned audience, who are the shyest bunch of people ever to find themselves in a circus tent at a comedy show. Su Mi does her best to rouse them, but most can’t even muster the energy to shout out their favourite synonyms for breasts, a section that would have flown in pretty much any other room.
One of the best performers on the circuit, Su Mi’s show has plenty of time to grow, like corn on the cob – she’s certainly got the talent, the material, and the energy to build this into something truly special.
Reviewed on 27th May
The Reviews Hub
Occasionally sublime
