Obehi Janice had friends at school who, like her, were academic and nerdy. She fancied boys at an early age – and also at an older age and, while we’re at it, more recently still. She is not very good at yoga and went on a nice trip to Paris and likes the music of Sir Shina Peters.
She is fascinated by all of this – why we should be, too, by such a commonplace list of experiences is a moot point. The Los Angeles-based writer and performer delivers this everyday litany with the polish and confidence of a seasoned standup but were it not for the willingness of a first-night audience to whoop along, this feeble material – complete with hard-to-gauge US references – would look exposed.
We are far into her routine before we have any sense of why Nova has been included in the fringe’s theatre programme, rather than comedy where it would be more at home (if also more lost amid the welter of look-at-me observational standups).
Eventually, though, she introduces Giacomo Casanova into the rambling conversation and seems surprised that we already know he was a real historical figure. Easing off on the jokes, she argues in favour of turning herself into the female equivalent of the philandering Italian. She enjoys sex and travel, so why not?
Except her rules would be different. She wants none of the exoticisation she experiences as a Nigerian-American woman dating white men. And she thinks sex should not be a transactional game, as Casanova did, but an expression of love.
These are hardly revelatory ideas and, given Casanova is no longer the name on everyone’s lips, not even very topical. Had these tales of her encounters with men been more distinctly about major grievances instead of minor disappointments, her argument would have carried some weight. As it is, Nova is locked in its own self-absorbed world.
• At the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 27 August.
• All our Edinburgh festival reviews
This article was updated on 14 August 2023 to clarify the show’s narrative.
