one4review | On 22, Aug 2018

Elaine Gallagher presents two of her interests – cycling and the rise of enfranchisement for men and women in the last hundred years – in a lecture/stand up hybrid that doesn’t really work as either. The show starts with five minutes of cycling related puns, and if that’s your thing, you might enjoy this show.

It doesn’t work great as lecture because the information contained therein isn’t particularly informative or coherent, and it lacked the depth or breadth of a traditional lecture. It also committed cardinal historical sins by making such unqualified claims as [prior to bicycles] women hadn’t been able to go around without a chaperone, as if no woman ever has been able to walk around on her own. It’s probably not what Ms Gallagher meant, but it is what she said.

It didn’t quite work as comedy because the material wasn’t strong enough or funny enough and the delivery became a little wearing – erratic sing-song tones and a few inexplicably drawn-out last-words-in-sentences. By the time we’d got through the ‘Edward chat’ (in itself a good bit of word play) about cycling, the audience felt rather drained of energy, and not prepared for laughing.

The analogy of feminism with cycling worked well, and the conceit of the show was promising, despite the execution.

Reveiwed by Laura
C Royale, 14:30
Until 27th