GRACE Campbell has begun her latest solo UK stand-up tour, Grace Campbell is On Heat, which saw an opening show in Southampton before coming to Reading’s Concert Hall last week.
The show is her most personal to date, not only in its brazen subject matter, but in its frank and earnest discussion of a period of Grace’s life she has described as among the most affecting and impactful.
She began with a short warm-up of crowd work, settling the audience and flexing her comedic muscles in a single stroke, with playful and quick bit interaction with audience members.
Grace’s humour and earnestness were immediate and disarming, setting the tone for the rest of the show.
Her confident material and breakneck pace give the show an urgent pace, and yet is smartly contradicted by the equally anxious and outspoken attitude to her subject matter.
This, in turn, gives the whole show the feeling of a deep meaningful conversation (DMC for the millennials in the room) via voice chat over Whatsapp.
This in fact encapsulates Grace’s work neatly: her frank yet flippant material, paired with her frenetic, irreverent delivery perfectly expresses Millennial ennui in all of its contradictions.
She touches on issues of consent– not only in romantic relationships, but also between patients and healthcare providers.
This was brought to a head particularly as she discussed the early stages of the show’s overarching subject: her abortion following a sudden pregnancy.
Her earnest discussion of her reaction to being shown the scan of the baby was the first staggering moment of the show, pulling no punches as she explores the mix of emotions she felt.
The show builds to an emotional climax, which is just as quickly and deftly turned on its head with a comedic sleight of hand before closing the show with a musical number.
Overall, Grace is both timeless and topical as she knits together universal themes of relationships and family, with the hubris and humility of a whole generation examined.
She jumps from chaos to catharsis with incredible dexterity, marrying gregariousness and subtlety in equal measure.
The weaving of weighty pathos and light-hearted humour is deft and disarming, laced through with Grace’s trademark exuberance and pinball-ricochet delivery.
Overall, Grace Campbell is On Heat is a rallying cry to the double-think required of the Instagram generation, juggling self-care and social responsibility, played to perfection through Grace’s anxious yet earnest outlook and fizzing energy.
Grace Campbell is touring through until December this year, with dates in Bath, Cambridge, and London, among others.
Full details and tickets are available via: disgracecampbell.com/tours
