Andrea Gibbs does indeed go ‘starkers’ for a few moments at the end of one of the three monologues that make up the appropriately named Andrea Gibbs is Starkers, but if you’re looking for a glimpse into the mind of the comic herself, be warned that each part of the trilogy was scripted by a different author, so each of the three mini-plays has a very different feel to the last.
The first piece is entitled ‘Naked Ambition’ (by Kate Mulvaney), and is the story of a young Australian (who is wearing a bikini so is presumably meant to be a young girl, although the script itself is interestingly gender-neutral) who reminisces fondly about watching cricket with her dad, and announces her desire to bring the glory-days of streaking back to the Australian cricket ground. Gibbs does an excellent job of conveying the wide-eyed innocence evoked by the lost summer days of childhood, even to those who may not have experienced it themselves. This plays less as comedy and more as a stroll down the author’s own memories and wishes.
The comedy becomes less subtle in the second act, ‘Nature’s Pocket’ (by Luke Milton), which comprises the musings of a female inmate whose capacious innards are the hub of a massive smuggling ring. This act seemed to split the audience very firmly between those who found the idea of a seemingly bottomless vaginal cavity either a little bit disturbing and those who found the concept to be the height of comic ingenuity.
The final part of the show is ‘Dora Green decides to bare her soul’ (by Damon Lockwood), which features a recently widowed septuagenarian who has come to the conclusion that she can only masturbate when she is suffering the pain of the dentist’s chair, and the show climaxes (yes, literally) with an even more disturbing revelation. Again, the audience response to this third of the evening was divided on the point of oversexed old women being inherently funny or not.
Each part of the threesome was introduced by the disembodied voice of Peter Holland, whose presence was definitely a highlight.
This show cannot be recommended for everyone. If you like your comedy quite broad and bawdy, there will be a lot here to entertain you. If you do not, look elsewhere.
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and futher details