Comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean strides onto the stage at Soho Theatre wearing a bitching sequinned leotard and announces she’s more familiar with performing in front of rowdy pub audiences rather than us, middle class Radio 4 fans. ‘Wait a minute,’ I think, ‘you don’t know we’re all middle class Radio 4 fans.’ Then the woman next to me let’s out a very houmousy silent belch and I realise Kiri’s got the measure of us.
In fact Kiri has the measure of most things. Her show Hysterical Woman is about sexism in comedy, something we at Funny Women try to tackle on a daily basis and come up against similar issues that Kiri cites. It’s no mean feat to pack all the anecdotes, experiences and nuance of this subject into an hour, not to mention dipping into the subject of racism in America. Kiri manages this, all the while being very funny with excellent timing and fighting one of the biggest issues of sexism; internalised misogyny.
Even though I spend all day every day reading. writing, thinking and talking about sexism in/and comedy this show was wonderfully refreshing. Kiri is self aware without being self deprecating, vulnerable without being weak and, as a result of what I would call harassment but others might call healthy post-show curiosity, backs up her cited facts with a printed out bibliography for audience members. Making her not just a working comedian but a bloody hard working comedian.
Find out when Kiri Pritchard-McLean is next gigging here!
