Chloe Petts performs her debut show Transience at the Pleasance Opening Gala in Edinburgh this August
(Picture: Getty Images)The venue lights were accidentally left on at start of Chloe Petts’ Soho set, but this first night hiccup was a brief one. After a quick sardonic ad lib about having to see everyone’s ugly mugs, someone found the correct switch to flick and normal service was resumed.
This was an apt glitch though. Petts’ extremely engaging debut Transience is an illuminating insight into the hot topic of gender. It is not as hard-hitting or heavy as that might sound. The twentysomething from Sittingbourne, who is a lesbian, simply takes us through some of her own experiences, subtly putting a persuasive case for more tolerance.
She begins by telling the story of growing up as a "child geezer" who went through a teenage "pre-gay" stage where she played the role of what she imagined a heterosexual female should be like. And, much to her audience’s amusement, she has the pictures of her fuchsia prom dress and clutch bag to prove it.
This self-mockery sets the tone for a guided tour through a number of incidents on her road to becoming "the man I always wanted to be”. Petts is a fanatical Crystal Palace supporter and recalls the pivotal moment when "the Alans", a group of male season ticket holders she sits with, started to bore her rigid with tedious talk of traffic and motorways. Finally she felt truly accepted.
Elsewhere she tackles the complexities of being misgendered and mistaken for a man. There was the time she was pushed over in the street only for her aggressor to apologise profusely when he realised he had knocked down a woman. Or the time she crossed the road late at night to avoid making a female walking in front of her feel uncomfortable.
There is nothing here to make the audience feel uncomfortable though. The commanding stand-up wears her intelligence lightly and puts everyone at their ease with her even-handed down-to-earth approach to an issue that often provokes strong feelings.
She says there is no message but she certainly makes a big subject accessible. Most importantly for a comedian, Transience is consistently funny, peppered with pithy lines and tart asides.
The only major downside was that her beloved Palace was thumped by Tottenham on her opening night. Maybe if she had been at Selhurst Park bantering with the Alans she might have brought her team some luck. But her performance onstage needed no good fortune. Petts is clearly a rising star whose name will soon be in lights.
