Review by Steve Bennett

You try not to have preconceptions before seeing an Edinburgh show, but the signs for this did not look good.

Joy Gohring is a pretty, blonde, perky, Californian sitcom actress whose show is all about happiness. If that doesn’t sound like the recipe for a cheesily awful hour, I don’t know what does.

And for the first few minutes, she doesn’t do much to challenge that idea, gushing bouncily about how much ‘we’re gonna have sooo much fun,’ producing a contrived letter home for some dreadfully weak jokes and flashing the top of her undies in the most exaggerated style to make her workaday observational points about the fashions of youth.

But then the show begins to change for the immeasurably better as she turns her effervescent attentions on to the subject of dating. Flirting outrageously with some poor, or lucky, innocent on the front row, she seduces him, experiences all the ups and downs of relationship and eventual messy break-up all in the space of a few short minutes.

Her eyes madden, her mannerisms become more manic as the roller-coaster ride of love and heartbreak is played out in all their wrenching emotions, making for a compelling bit of comedy-theatre.

Smashing through the performer-audience barrier like a cheerleader through a paper hoop, she then brings another unwilling victim into her passionate tale as a comforting shoulder to cry on or – more accurately – body to hug just that little bit too tight.

The committed performance is impressive, high in energy and with a distinctive outlandish style fully utilising this disconcerting, even invasive, interaction to get laughs.  There is a lot of charm and a fair bit of class to the way she moves the shows in unexpected directions, forever keeping the audience on their toes

Back on the debit side are the formulaic comedy songs, right down to the now-tedious technique of switching a rude word that would rhyme to an innocuous one that doesn’t.

But overall it is a joyous show – as promised – without the sugary coating you might have dreaded.

Review date: 1 Jan 2005
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett