Dry Ice

In her one hour show Mahfouz delights the audience with tales from the world of strippers, drug dealers and dinner parties – and yes, she is talking from her personal experience of working in strip-clubs for five years.

Mahfouz populates the stage with upwards of a dozen characters and moves between them easily, changing voice and posture to imitate a filth-bag customer or an uptight dinner host.

The stories themselves are entertaining, but the show would simply be a string of anecdotes if it weren’t for her impressive style of delivery: punchy staccato lines, dry humour and moments of piercing poetry that shock and amuse the audience.

The engaging content of the show, Mahfouz’s distinctive style and her confident performance recommends itself to an audience, but be warned: this show doesn’t serve to titillate. It’s there to reveal the reality of a stripper’s life, which turns out to full of the same desires and fears that concern us all.

– Charlotte Pegram