Sophie Wu is Minging, She Looks Like She’s Dead
✭✭✭✩✩ Gently amusing
Wee Red Bar (Venue 113) Sat 2 – Sun 24 August 2014
Angst-ridden adolescence bubbles through Sophie Wu is Minging, She Looks Like She’s Dead, part of the PBH Free Fringe at Edinburgh Art College’s Wee Red Bar.
Fan’s of Channel Four sit-com Fresh Meat will recognise Sophie Wu as Heather, the obsessive student who pursues her potential prey relentlessly. But here, it is from her own adolescence in Edinburgh that she draws her inspiration.
The show starts at a party, one of those horribly recognisable teenage affairs where things start badly and go downhill. Dressed in the ubiquitous and timeless school uniform of white shirt and black trousers, Sophie Wu journeys through her teenage years, a time where she was stricken by a double whammy of eczema and acne, thoroughly uncomfortable in her own skin.
the horrendous Banter Book
Hard to believe now as she tells of the “skinny, bespectacled girl with Leerdammer yellow skin and a face like a meat feast”. It’s territory many will recognise: uncomfortable at home, worse at school, endlessly gauche and blundering.
It is fertile ground too, full of cringe-worthy moments: the time she made overtures to a teacher (badly), pursuing uninterested male pupils and disco nights. Not to mention the horrendous Banter Book they boys kept to log their ratings of the girls and from which Wu drew the title of her show.
As well as a being a talented performer, Sophie Wu is a gifted writer. The script is a pelt through a teenage diary full of deliciously accurate detail. There are great anecdotes – shot through with those teenage plunges into darkness. And yet, there’s just not quite enough: there needs to be something pulling it together or some analysis. But what there is, is amusing and well done.
Sophie Wu has a charming presence, some spot on observations and some gently probing writing – her show could do with just that bit more bite.
Runtime: 1 hour
Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh College Of Art, Lauriston Place, EH3 9DF (Venue 113)
Sat 2 to Sun 24 August 2014
Daiy: 17.00
Tickets and details from: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/sophie-wu-is-minging-she-looks-like-she-s-dead
ENDS