After serving an eye-catching apprenticeship in live comedy, Ania Magliano’s profile has now surged as co-host of SNL UK’s Weekend Update, a spoof news bulletin recalling to viewers of my vintage the work of the great Two Ronnies. Would Messrs Corbett and Barker have capitalised on TV success with a standup show about learning to love their sex organs? They would not – but times have changed. Magliano’s new set about living a more embodied life has all the qualities – great jokes; open and endearing personality; and very expert construction – to woo to her stage work the new fans she’s secured by cracking wise on the small screen.
The issue for the 28-year-old is alienation from her own body and its experiences. In Peach Fuzz, she looks longingly at other cultures, so much more corporeal than our own. But then, living in the UK, are there any bodily sensations worth savouring? There’s one obvious answer – but Magliano is already in therapy for her ambivalence about that, which is suggested here by a marvellously British and uncomprehending routine about an online sex influencer claiming to have experienced 27 consecutive orgasms. A later scene finds Magliano prompted by her counsellor to commune with her own genitals via an artfully held hand-mirror – as I dare say Descartes did when first theorising the mind-body problem all those years ago.
This all sits at a highly enjoyable point on the spectrum between thoughtful, meaningful and delightfully daft, with detours into the relative virtues of Barbie and Sylvanian Families, and into our bisexual host’s penchant for “indoor boyfriends”. There are choice gags, like the one about the evolutionary advantage to having big labia, and the kind of deftly deployed, satisfying callbacks you only get in the most finely honed and tuned standup sets. A closing set-piece brings this one’s loose ends together in a sensory deprivation tank, where buoyant Magliano learns shareable lessons about what (and who) the body’s for, and why we should celebrate it. Sometimes a standup’s live work suffers when TV fame comes calling. Not here: this full-bodied comedy show is a cracker.
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At Soho theatre, London, until 4 July. At Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, 7-22 August and touring until 7 May
