From the poster, you could be forgiven for thinking that Mercedes Benson is your run of the mill chav character, a la Catherine Tate’s ‘Am I Bovvered’. But, within minutes of ‘The Pleasure is Yours’, you realize that the material is much cleverer than one catchphrase.
Gemma Layton as Mercedes, talks us through the benefits of improving herself on her literacy course and her first experiences of ‘culture’ with her visit to see Macbeth (“about a man who sees daggers in front of him wherever he goes – I think it was set in Peckham”). Her poems are a particular delight (one of which is a ‘sonic’ – just like wot Shakespeare done).
We are then introduced to a myriad of different characters, on screen and live, showing off an array of accents and proving that Layton is clearly a fantastic actress. There’s a UFO watcher who is longing to be abducted by aliens, a psychotic make up rep who really shouldn’t be running confidence workshops, a cabaret singer that has a frightening take on ‘enduring love’, and an ageing W.I. Lady of the Manor. The impressive thing about all of these is that, even though they are all borderline crazy, they are still very believable. In fact, I’m pretty sure the lonely character that gives out jam sandwiches once made me try her jam in a bed and breakfast in Stoke.
Layton has a great singing voice too and the songs have some real laugh out loud moments. The show is a mix of big belly laughs and pathos, and sometimes you feel a little guilty laughing at some of the characters’ stories…but laugh you do.
The show finishes with a rendition of Mercedes’/Layton’s YouTube hit, a reworking of Walking in Memphis, ‘Shopping in Lidl’, with the audiences willingly joining in. An impressive debut solo show from this Funny Women semi finalist.
Bar Bados @ St Johns. August 1st-23rd, 2.30pm
