You know you’re in trouble – or you have been in trouble – when Paul Gascoigne hugs you after your gig and says it was like watching his own life unfold on stage. That, says Gazza’s fellow geordie Louise Young, was when she first registered how wayward her life had been. In her maiden solo show, she offers an overview of her years lost to booze, substance abuse, depression – and theatre school. If that sounds dramatic, well, it is and it isn’t. Yes, there are a few hair-raising tales in Feral. But Young hasn’t given the autobiographical material much shape or specificity. It lacks context, and an ending – but never wants for energy and optimism, which this newcomer has in spades.
It starts with a hymn to boozy Newcastle, then narrows its focus on to Young’s rackety youth. Mental illness runs in her family, she tells us; her 20s were spent on drugs, waking up in police cells, being sectioned and running away. There’s obviously a world of pain lurking behind this material, but Young gives not a glimpse of it here, her disposition relentlessly sunny as she relates this derisory mental health recovery programme or that occasion when she told the local constabulary she was Catherine of Aragon.
Fair enough – it’s a comedy show. But shouldn’t this material have a little more heft? Instead, Young skates across it, toward no conclusion in particular, and via significant detours into her Turkish heritage and queer identity. That’s a lot: it can feel like a splurge. And the jokes vary steeply in quality, some corny and weak, and some – like the Catchphrase crack about watching her depressed flatmate through his window – neat and expressive. Through it all, our host remains upbeat, bubbly and familiar as she pilots a debut show as unruly as its leading lady.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August.
