To say that I think everyone should go and see this sketch show would be an understatement: I think it should be against the law not to. Especially according to the laws that govern the Edinburgh Fringe, of which I personally believe Ruby and Rachel should be made the queens.
Now, without further regal suggestion and with effort to temper my excited admiration, it is time to introduce Rachel and Ruby properly. For breakfast before the first London premier of their sketch show SHELF, Ruby ate two slices of gluten free toast with peanut butter and banana atop. She explains that this is because she is a little bitch. Rachel, however, had eaten crisps and ‘maybe an apple or a chocolate bar’. The night before the show, Ruby woke up every two hours and Rachel slept like a baby. But the beauty of this polarisation in the show is that the dissimilarity is celebrated with wholesome fervour. There is absolutely no falling back on the easy trope of female friendship only consisting of lazily disguised mutual hatred. There is no bitching or boy-pining here. And fank thuck! It’s about time us girls get some proper representation of how hilarious we are both individually and as collectives.
In this instance, Ruby and Rachel are not only hilarious but witty and insightful. Their comedy is lucid and… honest. I steal this from Rachel, who said that she likes the show for its honesty and I have to agree with her. I’m genuinely endeared by their guileless originality in using the sketch show format for celebrating the fun and the friendship and not just themselves. As an audience member, you don’t feel like you’re being embroiled in someone else’s loudly bombastic narcissism; you feel like you’ve had a sneak into the wonder-dynamism of human interaction. And it is joyous.
You will come out and you will be plagiarising Shelf for weeks. You won’t be able to help yourshelf. (There had to be one pun). ‘I can’t pretend to be someone I am anymore’ is currently my favourite. I also think it is deeply appropriate for us Funny Women. When it comes to functioning as a female human, there seem to be ridiculous limits to both the words Funny and Women. And Rachel and Ruby are expanding their cumulative definition.
If you are in Edinburgh and you don’t go to see this show, I will personally come and kick you. I won’t even be in Edinburgh, but my kick will be mighty and it will be righteous and it will reach you from everywhere.
You can catch Shelf at the PBH’s Free Fringe from 8th-29th August at 8.25pm. For more information click here!
