Athena Kugblenu
(Picture: PHOTOGRAPHY NATASHA PSZENICKI)Athena Kugblenu’s show, Shaking Her Class, is brand new. No Edinburgh Fringe run, no warm-ups, just straight into the clubby Soho Theatre basement, the perfect venue for a show that mixes profound thoughts with mischievous gags. If parts sound familiar, Radio 4 recently aired a Kugblenu special entitled Magnifying Class, and while this set unpicks similar seams it is very much a distinctive work in its own right.
As both titles suggest, Londoner Kugblenu has been thinking a lot about the class system recently. Sometimes she feels as if she has spent her entire life working out where she slots in. Her parents had a professional background, they owned china tea cups. So far, so bourgeois, but things are rarely that certain.
Her Ghanaian father, for example, could not even get a job in London as a ticket inspector, despite three degrees. And those china cups were locked away rather than freely available for daily use. Life for the young Kugblenu was lived in a curious kind of netherworld, not quite working class fish or middle class fowl and things have hardly become straightforward since then.
Kugblenu concludes that it is not easy to know exactly where you fit in. Is she middle class these days? Her biggest struggle is getting limescale off her kitchen surfaces. Has she ever fitted in? “I am what I hunt,” she suggests, comparing herself to Blade Runners merciless replicant and wondering if Priti Patel ever has the same thought.
Elsewhere she observes that one only has to look at how Diane Abbott or Meghan Markle are treated in this country to see how insidious class structure can be, particularly when intersecting with race. It is definitely not just about having money. She recalls how Stormzy’s front door was kicked down by police shortly after he moved into a swanky Chelsea pad when it was mistakenly reported that he was burgling his own home.
Kugblenu cites her own experiences of prejudice too. Despite being a project management high flyer, when she turned up at a reception in cycling gear to pick up a pass, she was handed a parcel. It was assumed she was a courier. No wonder she decided to go into comedy. Sometimes you just have to laugh.
If this all makes Shaking Her Class sound like a political rant, it very much isn’t. It does start a little dryly but it soon gathers pace and ideas flow freely as Kugblenu explores privilege and black origin stories. It will make you laugh, but, perhaps most importantly, it will make you think.
