★★★★
Abi Clarke, TikTokker turned stand-up comedian, finally hits the road with her debut show, Role Model. It is hard to tell who is having more fun: the audience, who have been waiting five years for their “toxic best friend” to make them laugh in person, or Abi, who rolls about the stage like a pair of leopard trousers returning to their natural habitat.
Supporting Abi at The Shaw Theatre is her good friend Eva Bindeman, a Bristol-based Northerner and the 2024 Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year.
Eva is loud, iconic, and utterly outrageous. From sexual dragon impersonations to ripping apart the clammy-handed magicians that women hate, and men secretly admire, Eva has the audience guffawing from start to finish.
When one audience member can’t contain her hysterical outburst, Eva says she sounds like a balloon is deflating out of her bum—a comparison that does nothing to help the woman’s, nor the rest of the audience’s, unstoppable laughter. Side hair partings being a sign of age might seem like hilarious millennial insight to share—until Eva reveals she is obviously talking about her fanny, and she should probably work on some non-fanny-related content if she wants to get it on the BBC.
Vibrators, Mario Kart, and your grandma may previously have had nothing in common (thank God), but Eva changes that in a story that has us howling.
Abs and limbic systems deliciously warmed up; it is time for Abi to show London what she’s made of. But not before a video blasts from the projector screen featuring many of her most popular sketch characters, including her ASOS designer alter-ego and the human cat.
Abi Clarke is apologetically herself, accompanied onstage by a bad tally chart and an “I’m sorry for having bad thoughts” stool as she hilariously yet honestly exposes the insecurities felt by far too many girls. While her TikTok bio reads “original sketches and stand-up comedian,” she declares that many people have expected her to rise to the status of feminist role model since garnering such a huge following on social media. But this is a role she has never once shown interest in embracing.
In a new age of comedians where social media makes it easy to remain polished, Abi shows us that talent, quick wit, and a bit of goofiness are an excellent recipe for coming out from behind the safety of a camera. Whether she is accidentally pooping out a microphone, describing her parents as “off-peak hotties,” or revealing what her real estate agent thinks of her bedroom “activities,” it is chuckle after chuckle with Abi Clarke.
The transitions between Abi’s sketches are more seamless than swiping through TikToks on the “for you” page. From her infamous Twilight bit to deviously understandable preparations for if she were murdered, Abi underhandedly leaves the audience with many deep thoughts to ponder, as well as immense gratefulness that we can fulfil our Abi Clarke cravings by heading to her TikTok library of comedic ridiculousness.
While some of the crowd relate more to Eva’s “I was told I’m too old for TikTok” than to Abi’s influencer, sorry–content creator–stardom, both shine a perfectly humorous, snort-inducing light on what it means to be a woman in today’s world.
Abi Clarke: Role Model will be performed at The Lowry Quays Theatre on 1 June.
Words by Lucy Dunnet
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