Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Tess Branchflower’s show is about how she moved to London in the hope of reinvention, but failed as she hadn’t really thought about what she hoped to achieve.

She doesn’t appear to have learned much, however, as it’s similarly  unclear what she hoped to achieve with this monologue. After the best part of an hour we learn that she found the metropolis noisy, busy, polluted, claustrophobic and expensive, and that changing locations isn’t enough to change yourself. ‘Same shit, different bucket.’

Branchflower acknowledges the show’s limitations. ‘There’s not much plot,’ her subconscious – as represented by Keira Knightley (not the real one) – says in voiceover, as if mentioning it makes it OK. The introspection is superficial, while hints that she’s running away from a failed relationship, or occasionally haunted by her mother’s death, remain just that: neither fully explored for dramatic effect nor intriguing enough to add mystery.

She gently mocks herself for considering herself an intrepid pioneer for making the move to the UK when it’s a well-travelled route, even if she was a little older than most backpackers. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t embrace the social scene, or so easily tolerate the shitty accommodation and passive-aggressive housemates that’s part of the experience of relocating on a budget.

Because it’s such a common experience, her story needs new insight that Branchflower cannot offer. She stood in the queue for the Queen’s lying-in-state for a bit, then left. She got crammed into Tube carriages. She went to coffee shops and played with her phone (and yes, she thought this worth mentioning). She failed to book a table to get a Sunday roast.  She went to Croatia for a holiday, and kept awake by vigorous sex in the next bunk.

She did have one unique experience: ‘The Heathrow Express took me to Waterloo station.’ It doesn’t go there (pedantic, I know…)

Branchflower’s a personable enough performer that you might even forgive the gratuitous performative mime, or the slightly dodgy London geezerette impersonation. But her observations are bland, with surprisingly few attempts at jokes for a comedy festival show and no insight or story that would make it work as a more dramatic piece. It’s just 50 minutes of your life down the Tube.

• Tess Branchflower Mind The Gap is at Campari House at 5.30pm until Sunday

Review date: 4 Apr 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival