Jacqueline Novak
(Picture: Getty Images for Reality Testing)There was a real buzz in the room before Jacqueline Novak appeared last night. Her show, Get On Your Knees, has already been an off-Broadway hit, attracting celebrity fans including Amy Schumer, Lorde and Emma Stone. It would be fair to say she blew away her London audience too.
The subject of Novak’s monologue is oral sex, hence the title. But this is no sleazy smutfest. The energetic New Yorker has the soul of a poet and her monologue references literary icons from Nabokov to TS Eliot. It is more about the philosophy of the sexual act than the nitty-gritty, though there is plenty of that too.
Novak spends a chunk of the first half singing the praises of the penis. She is fascinated by the male organ, seeing it as a mass of contradictions. A boner without a bone. Strong yet sensitive. Thrusting and yet simultaneously pleading – as she mimics it with arms outstretched she evokes nothing so much as Oliver Twist begging for more.
It is not the first time a comedian has tackled the subject of male tackle. British comic Richard Herring created a show with the self-explanatory title of Talking Cock in 2002 which has since then been performed around the world by actors. But whereas that was something of a history and biology lesson, Novak has a more autobiographical angle as she sets out to contextualise her youthful encounters.
When she moves on to recall her early exploits, needless to say they did not turn out quite like a Hollywood romcom, or even a low-budget porn film. It did not help that the tips she had been given made little or no actual sense when it came to the big coming-of-age moment. In the end, after an inauspicious, anxious start, she just had to bite the bullet...
Novak is now in her late thirties and exudes both wit and wisdom. She talks fast, assertively paces the stage and deftly acts out moments too, which is hardly necessary as her words paint such vivid pictures. It is no surprise when she says that one of her favourite books is the thesaurus. This is not quite stand-up, more storytelling, but there are also plenty of laughs.
The result is a fabulously funny show that manages to be serious and thoughtful as well as silly and smutty. It is subversive and also feminist, without ramming sexual politics down your... well, you can finish that sentence yourself. Maybe slightly overlong at 90 full-throttle minutes, yet thoroughly deserving of its standing ovation at the closing climax. Which is not a euphemism.
