Sarah Roberts tells us at the start of her sold-out show that it’s not open to interpretation. We just need to follow her guidelines: it’s about a) how hot and b) how talented she is. Furthermore, there’s an embargo on gossip. Reviewers prick up their ears, on the alert for jokes they can smuggle out. But they’ll find it hard, as there are just so many gags, scripted and unscripted.
She has a great opener about – gasp! – finding she’s being followed on Insta by Paul Mescal. Roberts is happy to bare her soul, popping up on a screen the desultory exchange. She takes comfort in that telling double tick that her hero has ‘seen’ her response. Surely, she reasons, the fact that he has yet to reply (after two years, she admits) is proof that she’s still in his inner circle?
Her entitled millennial persona has this wonderfully deluded take on everything in her life, quick to recast disappointments as triumphs. Even her failure to be chosen for S Club 7, she convinces herself, is proof of her specialness. It’s lovely characterisation, Roberts delighting in a whole range of millennial girl gestures and expressions. Work on yourselves, she insists, while talking about her Core Values. Her range of reference is deliberately narrow, from her self-proclaimed success at Candy Crush through boys on the 214 bus to school to her disappointing experience of sex. It’s all about her. Underneath the bravado, it’s a razor-sharp satire on youthful privilege.
But what really makes Roberts stand out as a comic talent to watch are her effortlessly unstoppable interactions with the audience. Anyone here play Candy Crush? An audience member finds herself interrogated as to her current score. But the joke develops, Candy Crush Audience Member becoming an impromptu character in the show, as does Brian, an audience member in the front row and a man she recognises from a recent wedding. It’s all gentle, inoffensive fun. A hapless reviewer in the front row is caught making notes. Having established said reviewer is not stealing her jokes, Roberts turns her into another go-to character, bounding over to high-five her at intervals. Write this down, she later commands, This Show Just Gets Worse.
Silkworm is fresh, unpredictable and endlessly funny.
Reviewed on 23 April and at the Bill Murray, London, on 8 May 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
Fresh, funny, original
