Review – Growing Up Games
Venue: The Lowry
Date reviewed: 19th September, 2008
Stand up comedians are ten a penny these days. Jude Simpson’s unique selling point is that she is a stand-up poet .In her new show, Growing Up Games, Simpson explores the subject of adulthood. She starts by explaining how she awards herself points for undertaking activities which she considers to be grown-up and then acknowledges that this defeats the objective by being rather childish.
The show looks at different perceptions of adulthood offered by Ms. Simpson’s friends and the audience. One might expect this to generate observational ad-lib humour from the performer and, whilst that is the case, Ms Simpson is as likely to invite the audience to share her appreciation of a comment that she finds to be poignant.
Jude Simpson is a friendly host and greets the audience as they arrive learning their names and home towns. As yet, however, she has not gained sufficient knowledge of the area to be able to draw humour from the place names so the process sometimes results in no more than polite conversation.
The bulk of the set comprises a series of poems and songs and, whilst these do not always reflect the theme of the evening, they are all excellent. Some of them are gloriously silly, like the tribute paid to the virtues of the Kenwood Mixer. Ms. Simpson’s tall frame generates a song about her femur – which is, she claims, the same size as Kylie Minogue!
Of more relevance to the theme of growing up ‘All My Friends Listen to Radio 4′ ruefully acknowledges how tastes change as we age and also makes affectionate,and funny, word play on the titles of various programmes on that station. Some of the more serious poems explore Simpson’s simple joy in performing and her attitude, as a white woman living in a village, to performing rap – a style of music more associated with an urban black male lifestyle. A particular favourite was Spinsta putting forward, and finding humour in, the suggestion that unmarried women should reclaim the word spinster.
What this wonderfully witty evening lacks a completely satisfactory conclusion. A final song describing the type of adult whom Simpson admires does not really tie together the various loose ends .
Although the performance could be a little more concise the high quality of the poems and songs alone are sufficient to ensure a very entertaining and occasionally moving evening .
-Dave Cunningham