Review by Steve Bennett

"You've got to have a gimmick in comedy," Shelley Cooper perceptively observes. And hers is a doozy - she used to be a he.

It's obviously a fascinating story for a female father of two and former boxing champ - for Middlesex, appropriately enough - to tell. The problem is, she doesn't tell it very well.

Her delivery is dour and uncertain, her stage presence weak. Plus the habit of continually interrupting herself with phrases like "let's just get this bit out of the way" hardly suggests a scintillating routine is about to be unleashed.

We never really understand her. We never knew what she felt as a woman trapped in a man's body, the emotions of undergoing the transformation, or how people react to her in her new gender.

Instead of insights, we get a straightforward narrative, with a few puns thrown in, and it all falls a little flat.

She even does a lot of old-fashioned material about the difference between men and women. I suppose if anyone's entitled to cover this ground, it's her - but again, there's no insight, just trite observation about the state of gents' toilets compared to ladies and the like.

There's no doubt it takes real balls to tell a life story like this - and the pun is most definitely intended - but the finished product feels so much like an opportunity wasted.

It's tempting to go for more wordplay and say this show needs the odd snip here and there, but it doesn't, it needs a complete rethink from top to bottom.

Review date: 1 Jan 2003
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett