Review by Steve Bennett

Iona Dudley-Ward can breathe believability into the most grotesque of characters, but sadly has no idea of how to put a show together, nor any concept of script editing. So while A Bit Of A Character starts promisingly, the audience soon come to resent the reappearance of the same creations time and time again, milking the ideas dry.

The overuse of video is the most infuriating thing here. No one minds a bit of multimedia these days, and it can often enhance a show, but a total 25 minutes of this hour involved watching her YouTube sketches play out on the screen. This reached a nadir when, after one extended taped sketch of maybe four minutes, one of her live characters came on, delivered two lines, then bang: yet another long video sketch. No one came out to watch a TV stuck on the same channel.

Six characters populate the show. On screen we first have an Australian backpacker, going round various London landmarks telling us how shit they are. So far, so one dimensional. Then an artist who specialises in drawing cock and balls – which could have had potential as a quick ‘reveal’ sketch, but is typically overexposed, taking a vibrator into Tate Modern as if it was a scale model of an installation he was planning. And the character’s name? Richard Head. Really? Is that the best you can do? And if you didn’t get the joke, he says repeatedly ‘Some people call me Dick’.

The third screen character has much more depth and potential, but has unfortunately been stymied by Dawn French playing a similar role in Psychoville: the woman deluding herself that a doll is her real baby. Dudley-Ward’s creation, Jane, is three-dimensional, and slightly poignant in the tragedy of her situation, but again the mockumentary about her needs a serious edit.

On stage, Dudley-Ward’s finest creation is Lyn, the leader of an assertiveness course but – guess what? – she’s a bag of nerves herself. So it’s with some surprise that this turns out to be one of her finest characters, expertly realised with subtlety and conviction, with a decent script that allows Dudley-Ward to shine in her interaction with the audience.

Then we have egotistical contemporary dance instructor Genevive, who likes to show off her moves. It’s just bad dancing as comedy, but done with ridiculous verve. And finally, the ill-tempered barmaid delivering a long list of dos and don’ts to the customers, a one-gag character pretty much used as such.

Dudley-Ward’s talent at being conjure up such comic grotesques isn’t in question… but she needs to think more about what to do with these creatures once they’re here.

Review date: 25 Aug 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett