Debbie Does My Dad

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You feel somehow churlish to criticise. Bobby Gordon’s one-man show about growing up with a pornstar dad seems a bit like theatre as therapy. The trouble is: in therapy, whatever you say and do is OK. In the theatre it simply isn’t.

Reading the press release already leaves you open-mouthed. The following review quote is proudly highlighted: “A touching story and a must-see for anyone who’s ever been in porn … or wanted to be." How many of you does that exclude?

And you can’t help thinking the episodes of simulated sex are about more than exploring Gordon’s plainly moronic father, who, we are told, went into porn because he believed in 70s-style free love, was the only man in the industry not to be a raging misogynist (yeah, right) and whose answer for every one of his eight-year-old son’s issues (“Dad, I can’t do my homework”) was “grab your dick”.

You can see why he needs therapy. But why does he need to bore the rest of us with it? Are he and Bedlam after the voyeur market? This show is clumsily written, clumsily directed, badly performed, borderline exploitative, crass… oh, AND inappropriate.

- Craig Singer