Writers and Directors: Rose Berry and Emilie Brittain
The wellness industry is a ripe target for satirical comedy. Similarly, podcasts featuring inexperienced hosts answering listener questions are widespread. On the face of it, then, Rose Berry and Emilie Brittain’s work-in-progress show has some meaty source material with which to play.
In character, they are Heidi and Julie, a pair of new age healers in loose-fitting linens who are delivering a wellness seminar that is in reality an attempt to extort money from attendees, offering various levels of access for large amounts of money. There is a continual promise of sharing a “special method” for wellbeing and happiness that the pair is constantly distracted from getting to. Here, though, what could be a great running joke is clouded a little by the pair’s hesitancy with their still nascent material. It’s never quite clear whether their constant surprise and indecision about what the next part of their piece might be is a character bit.
A segment in which the pair answers listener questions introduces a bit of improvisational work, with at least one of the women unaware of the question beforehand. The topics concerned start off in the mundane (fallen foot arches) but get more and more bizarre (sexual attraction to cracks in pavement concrete). There is potential for great improv comedy here, but the responses could benefit from a bit more imagination and variety.
Despite the short 50-minute running time, there is already a sense halfway through that the pair are running out of material. It is at this point that an “audience member” storms the stage and sends the show in a different direction, exposing some of the true nature of the women’s ideology and business methods. This pivot would be stronger if it felt like there was more of the original show to disrupt, but it does at least indicate that the intentions of the writing are deeper than the patchy comedy we have witnessed up to this point.
There are plenty of laughs throughout, and the general structure holds up. As their show develops, Berry and Brittain need to beef up the scripted elements and work on the improvised sections so that both feel a lot more effortless than they do right now. Heidi and Julie have the potential to become notable comedy characters, but currently, their hesitancy and incompetence are conveyed in unintentional ways.
Runs until 10 October 2025
