It’s said that laughter is the best medicine. Given that there was a full house on Friday 7th February 2014 at Leicester Square Theatre to see ‘Hope & Gloria: The Dr. Hope Group Therapy Session’, I think we should count comedy as a form of homeopathy.
Sadly for those of you who weren’t there, that night was billed as the last performance and you’ve probably missed the first Funny Women Awards Best Show winner. I’m also sorry to say that you missed a corker of a show – and the chance to get your work stress out through a rapid-fire series of bum clenches.
In Hope & Gloria, Alex Maher is Dr. Hope, a woman who has more in common with Dr. Fox than Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman when it comes to actual qualifications. During her interactive group therapy session, her evangelical ‘confidence-building’ style of delivery was liberally mixed with some hippy arm-waving and the barked commands of a drill instructor. She had us all waving our arms in the air or making animal noises in unison – when we weren’t crying with laughter, that is.
This is definitely the type of show that suits a more intimate venue, as everyone in the audience was roped in to take part at some point. The front row naturally received the most attention, but one unsuspecting man at the back also got a bit more than he bargained for.
The show gradually takes a darker turn, as Dr. Hope tells us more about her childhood and her relationship with her mother, Dr. Gloria. It turns out that our therapist has issues of her own, which you’d twig from the split personality, and there are clever uses of the lights and sound during her emotional outbursts. If anyone in that room really needed therapy, it was Dr. Hope.
Now, I’m still holding out for more performances so I don’t really want to spoil the finale. However, I can say that roughly 5 minutes from the end we all started to feel a sense of foreboding about what we knew must ultimately happen. It’s a predictable ending, but in a good way – the tension in that room was heavy in the air and it added to the ‘awkward’ feeling throughout the show. By the climax, everyone was genuinely on the edge of their seat, leaning forward, waiting for the inevitable. And the final twist guaranteed that the audience went home with beaming smiles on their faces.
I can honestly say that I left that show feeling so much happier, upbeat and positive about life than when I went in. Tube strikes, rain and cold weather be damned, that was an amazing show with some valuable life lessons. Maybe it was secretly more about group therapy than any of us realised.
Follow Dr. Hope aka Alex Maher on Twitter @MissAlexMaher – and tell her to do more shows!
