Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress By a Life in Progress

Synopsis

Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress By a Life in Progress is a four-handed, part-confession, part-performance comedy drama based on Joan's own larger-than-life rollercoaster life. While it hilariously presents the Joan that we know, from her biographies, TV appearance and live stand-up shows, it also, quite movingly, reveals the woman behind the public face that the public have never seen before. It's fierce, funny and unforgettable... Set in Joan's dressing room backstage at the Oscars ceremony, Joan is preparing for one of her legendary annual TV catwalk commentaries on the fashion hits and disasters at Hollywood's biggest night of the year. But all is not well... her dressing room is B, not A!!; her complimentary cheese is puny, not plentiful; and her producer is the bigwig's nephew, not the bigwig! The tension and drama are the catalyst for an introspective look at aging, going through life's ups and downs and being a woman in Hollywood. After Joan's five amazing decades in showbusiness, the topics fly by - some familiar, some not. The famous breakup with Johnny Carson is there, her husband's suicide, the feuds and firings, several backstabbings, sidesteps and full frontal calamities. You may think you've heard it all before, but you'd be wrong...

Our Review:

5 September 2008

She’s bold, she’s sassy and she’s 75 years old. What more do you want? A great show, perhaps, but this is an interesting mix of stand-up and stand-off in sitcom. Joan Rivers may look like Ruby Wax made over as Nancy Reagan, with a sinister facelift touch of the Wildebeest woman, but she ain’t complaining, even if her mirror might.

The best thing is her vulgarity, though I rather miss her gag about the big white stain on her small black dress as an aftermath of a one-on-one interview with Bill Clinton. This was the woman who said that without her own bra she’d be kicking her own chest all the way to the bathroom.

Now, she’s kvetching about her reduced status on American chat show television and the confusion over sex in the over-sixties. Her first marriage failed, her television show was dropped, her second husband committed suicide. But, like Elaine Stritch in Company, she’s still here.

The new Leicester Square (formerly the Venue) producer Mar...

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Latest User Review

Paul Vyse - 5 September 2008:

Just come back from seeing the show in Leicester Square, London. Just brilliant. Having been quite ambivalent about Joan in the past, this show just took me completely by surprise – funny (hilarious!), and moving by turns, with a glimpse of the real, probably quite lovely Joan underneath. Standing ovation, naturally. Thoroughly recommended show... I'm certainly going to try to catch it again. See it!...

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