It’s perhaps bad form to start a review by commenting on what the comic is wearing but I reckon, in saying that I was slightly distracted for a minute by her incredible E.T. shirt, Sara Barron would think I am just being perceptive. (I need that shirt.)
Her solo hour Enemies Closer has been on (and off) the road for a couple of years, thanks to the pando, but now she’s back in the Soho Theatre’s main room — though it feels just as intimate as a back-room-of-a-pub gig, as is her charm.
Sara’s skill lies in her ability to spin a tale, starting every thread with excitement about what’s coming and peppering in enough hilarious tangents that by the time she reaches the story’s climax, the tension is built to the rafters. And she does this with each and every routine, almost battering you with laughter for the whole hour. She’s an expert storyteller, and there is no mercy from the lols.
The joy of seeing Sara perform live is that her interactions with the audience can vary from her “miming masterbaysh” towards a man in the front row (don’t worry, she asked a Gen Z friend if this was ok) to another viewer quite literally begging to be roasted by her.
Unfortunately, future audiences will be unlikely to experience the delicious moment of realisation that a woman in the audience was also an acquaintance of her years-long nemesis — however, as unique as that particular connection was, it’s easy to imagine her finding something equally as thrilling to bond with another audience member over.
It always pleases me as a grown woman to hear that other grown women also have nemeses. Well, Sara’s got a roster, ranging from her friends (who she hates), to people she follows on Instagram (who she hates), to actual objectively-speaking arseholes (who, you guessed it, she hates, and now so do I).
It really is a wonderful thing to be able to embrace the side of yourself that wants to mock Carpool Karaoke and its seemingly omnipresent host, even if it means you’ll lose out in her game of “hero vs cunt”. Ultimately though, the judgment — sorry, perceptiveness — falls equally on herself, even as she revels in being right about her judgment of others.
Elsewhere there’s talk of her new material, which we get several teasers for throughout, so watch this space for her vagina talking in a cockney accent.
Verdict: hero.
