Chokeslam – Omnibus Theatre, London

Writer: Tegan Verheul

The petite and curvy, doll-like comedian, Tegan Verheul, originally from Vancouver, Canada, articulate intelligent and reflective, is obsessed with Pro Wrestling. Like a pint-sized power ranger in a leotard, fishnets, and thigh-high boots, she stands between cardboard cutouts of Mark William Calaway AKA The Undertaker and Bret Hart, two Pro Wrestling legends, and regales the audience with her love of this pantomime sport of giants.

Recounting names of key holds, a pro wrestling glossary and a blow-by-blow account of some seminal fights, Verhaul is the incongruous new poster girl for this brutal and theatrical sport. The full fan club were in, whooping, hollering, chanting: wrestling aficionados who knew the stories riffed off her fizzing enthusiasm.

So, what’s a nice girl like Tegan Verheul doing here, salivating at body slams, and aroused by the violence of the ring, disappearing into this fantasy world of bloody escapism? She attributes her passion for the sport to an ex-boyfriend, eventually her husband and between her oral history of the sport, threads a personal story of love, romance, disillusion, friendship, and community. Chokeslam was first presented at the Edinburgh Fringe last year after Verheul graduated with an MA in Contemporary Acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2022. This, her autobiographical debut, is the first sighting of a performer who emanates star quality and has a vibrant, irresistible energy.

As the tone shifts from comic and surreal Pro Wrestling stories to the private disclosures of an individual who’s been through her own fight, the hour passes quickly. The emotional content of the performance is derived from these contrasts: the bizarre and animated against the vulnerable and blistering with the light shifting accordingly. While the entertaining sports chronicle will appeal to Pro Wrestling fans, the personal journey has wider appeal; Pro Wrestling is niche but love and loss, universal. Anyone who knows little or nothing about the sport might feel teased by the revealing morsels that can feel intermittent and uneven. It’s this bit of the performance that feels more significant, the stuff you can’t see on YouTube or read on Wikipedia.

There is a subtext that runs through the piece, one about women in a man’s world, female inequality, and insecurity. Sometimes, the messages feel mixed, an apparent desire to please men contrasts with the indignation at the second-class status of female Pro Wrestlers. Although she self-identifies as a Pro Wrestling superfan-cum-groupie, she is first and foremost a flawed human, with needs, desires, and insecurities.

Sometimes Verheul’s vulnerability borders into neediness which asks too much of the audience and forces them into the position of priest at a confessional. Nonetheless, Chokeslam is a fresh and original premise for a one-woman show and ultimately what we witness is someone dealing with the past and, winning at life.

Runs until 23 July 2024 and then plays the Edinburgh Fringe 2024