[star rating = 3/5]
I just couldn’t love it, but I did enjoy the sighs of the white male sitting behind me as this charged feminist re-capped history from the modern-female gaze.
After a successful run at the Brighton Fringe and a string of 5 star reviews, I was expecting something a little bit more polished from NATALIE CUTLER’s solo show, a blend of stand-up and theatre.
In a feminist piece of drama attempting to document the struggle of women throughout the last century Natalie brought a much needed history lesson to this Fringe; questioning just how much, or how little, has been achieved in the way of equality since women received the vote.
Cutler does well to make light of the many ridiculous aspects of gender inequality from the early 1900s, however the fast-pace of the first half of the show meant the jump between the decades sometimes felt a little unclear – there was a good use of props and readings from real texts, the likes of Sex Education in the 1960s, to help ease these transitions.
On this particular Thursday afternoon, still in the first week of it’s Edinburgh run, Not-Yet-Suffragette had just a few too many hiccups for it to reach its full potential. Cutler’s performance often seemed like it went a little off-script, maybe it was just pent up frustration at the human race, but there were a couple of long pauses and at one point she requested a line, and went on to call-out her technician for not keeping up with her. Â
She quickly bounced back from this, and the last ten minutes of the production left the audience with a powerful message about what it means to be a woman in 2018 – I only wish the entire show could have been held at a similar tempo.
For Cutler, the concept was simply better than the delivery.
