The start to Maeve Higgins’ show didn’t bode well, as Maeve began with a nervous, halting delivery and the response from the audience was conspicuously quiet. In fact her first laughs came out of jokes about her own onstage failure.
However as she went on and the audience adjusted to to the fact that they weren’t going to get a series of slick jokes, they came to warm to her personal, cosy style. Maeve said at one point in the show that she likes to chat, and chat she does. In fact, if anything she’s overly chatty, and in a way meanders without delivering much in terms of structured jokes. However this meandering style is slowly infectious.
The set is dressed with a cardboard doll house and a small, ceramic baby deer sat on a table. The presence of these is explained away by Maeve by saying that they are simply irrelevant to the story. This is typical of the show itself. She discusses an unconnected variety of topics, from finding short sleeves under cardigans distracting, to the laziness of the standard “pull back and reveal” type joke, often taking prompts from her audience to remind her what she was talking about after being distracted by diverging thoughts. She does tell the story of the kitten brides in the title, and shows enlarged photos of her cat Michael, to demonstrate his ability to remain inscrutable, even whilst being told ‘amazing’ facts. There are touches of Josie Long to Maeve, in the sense of her meandering whimsy. Overall, though, much of her material seems to focus on her own neuroses, demonstrating humour as therapy. However, at the same time, she doesn’t seem to realise how potty she comes across, even when discussing her inner voices, making her all the more endearing.
At a later point in the show she returns to story about her cats, particularly Michael. After having gotten to see images of Michael, to then find out something very sad about him is a little devastating, and not in a comedically profound way. Just sad and upsetting.
The most structured part of the show, and the most successful, are the vignettes at the end of the performance, showing different scenarios for post break-up revenge. The structured format of these pieces stand in stark contrast to the bulk of the show, so much so that the change of pace feels a little jarring. They would perhaps be better if situated at the start of the show, breaking the audience ice and setting the scene for what is to come. As it is it feels like they are add ons, which, overlate, try to explain the purpose of the show
I can’t help feeling that there’s a good show here, with a good director and some kind of structure Maeve could dazzle. Unfortunately, despite Maeve’s personal allure, it doesn’t really fire on all cylinders.
For more info and booking details go to Maeve Higgins – Kitten Brides