one4review | On 03, Aug 2014

Josie Long – Cara Josephine

5 Stars

Love’s great isn’t it? Falling for someone, having them fall for you, finding yourself rushing headlong into something that you truly, honestly, steadfastly believe will make your life full and complete and happy and wonderful, without ever thinking that one day it will all simply fall apart in front of your tear-filled eyes. You see that love you felt for someone crumbling away and you do everything you can to hold onto the good times, try everything you can to recapture those magical opening moments, those last throws of your emotional dice robbing you of both your self-confidence and self-respect. When love dies, the intensity of those feelings has nowhere to go and instead you turn it in on yourself, losing little pieces of your identity day after day. What do you do about it? How do you get yourself through those long, dark hours of sadness? Well, if you’re Josie Long, you turn the experience into an absolute gem of a show.

Last year Long’s heart was broken. It left her depressed and reflective, questioning the relationships she has with both partners and family whilst trying to deal with the fact that everyone else seems to have moved on and she’s somehow been left behind. It may sound like quite heavy stuff but it’s dealt with in such a delightfully gleeful way that it would take a heart of stone not to warm to Long and share in her heartache. Her stage persona is chirpy and joyful and it was clear that the audience in a packed Stand One warmed to her immediately.

Whilst heartbreak is the overarching theme of the show, Long deals with a number of topics along the way, veering from her appreciation of inappropriate men in ‘Orange is the New Black’ to her love of Radio Three. Embarrassing incidents are dealt with deftly as she self-deprecatingly leads us through various points of idiocy in her life. Her interplay with the audience is wonderful to watch, and it genuinely looks like she’s having fun on stage. At no point would I say the show suffered any dip in quality, which is a true testament to the quality of Long’s material and delivery.

This is a clever, sweet and genuinely affecting show that deals with the low points of life and turns them into comedic highs.

Reviewed by Diane

Stand One – 20.40