One of the great characters in recent live comedy is Rosalie Minnitt’s Clementine, a send-up of Jane Austen-era femininity who is also wickedly relevant to young women’s lives today. That persona leapt frilly bonneted to mind when I watched Bebe Cave’s Christbride, which likewise plays fast and loose with anachronism and history – in this case, the middle ages – to explore women’s lives in days gone by. Cave’s venture isn’t quite as successful: fun though her story is, Batilda Bigbum – as the cartoonish name indicates – feels less a fully realised character than an excuse for her creator to goon around lovably.
It makes for an interesting counterpoint to Cave’s solo theatre show The Screen Test, which showcased her comic and performing talents while concealing its creator behind a disciplined character and script. This time, madcap Bebe bursts out from behind her 14th-century alter ego (“I’m not like the other maidens!”) and clowns around at the slightest prompting, all while orchestrating the busy tale of her heroine’s failed courtship, flight to a nunnery, then eventual burning (no spoilers – it’s how the show starts) as a witch.
