One Woman Show – Ambassadors Theatre, London

Writer: Liz Kingsman

Director: Adam Brace

Remember when Phoebe Waller-Bridge broke the fourth wall in Fleabag and you sensed something new was happening? Now Liz Kingsman blazes onto the scene and you know you’re witnessing another seismic shift in comedy. Her fabulous One Woman Show is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s funny on so many levels all at once: a show within a show within a show.

For a start Kingsman thinks she’s presenting a her new piece Wildfowl (‘dramaturge Dirk Purgmead’, the programme notes). This performance, we’re told, is being filmed and there’s a bit of faff about camera angles and sound levels. It’s all a set-up of course. Every so often when Kingsman is in full flight, the sound recordist breaks in to tell her the microphone isn’t picking up. Kingsman as sulky diva wants to start all over again, but is told she must get on with it.

Kingsman poses as the aspiring young woman writer/performer who’s evangelical about the need to get female voices heard, their stories told. Or at least her story told: Kingsman is also the razor-sharp satirist exposing the genre’s more ludicrous tropes. All that stuff about the difficulties of finding yourself as a woman, confessions about mishaps at work and disastrous sexual encounters is put in the stocks. Awaking in an unfamiliar bedroom, Kingsman solemnly asks,‘What was IN that bottle of vodka?’

The comic lines come thick and fast, each one sliding off into another dimension. Lighting (lovely design by Daniel Carter-Brennan) switches to ironic moody to signal a segue into A Memory. Kingsman plays all the parts. There’s Austrialian boss, Dana, given to ludicrous chunks of woke inspiration and Manchunian bestie Selima with whom Kingsman shares a flat. Another great friend is mentioned: ‘She’s from Northern Ireland.’ A fractional pause as we anticipate Kingsman’s Antrim accent. Then: ‘But she never said anything.’

We really need a new term for this meta theatre that goes beyond meta. When she tells us what her mother said to her, she finds her inner dialogue is overheard in the office. Describing a night of sexual passion, Kingsman poses provocatively over a chair. ‘It’s my favourite position’ – pause while she wiggles her bottom – ‘It allows me to carry on narrating.’

There is a fabulously surreal plot which somehow involves the London Wetland Centre, man of mystery Jared (‘He was fundraising for the common crane’) and a gorgeous 8’9” Panamanian. One Woman Show is comedy magic – you must see it.

Runs until 21 January 2023