Writer and humourist Fran Lebowitz was famous in the 1970s and 1980s and has now become famous again thanks to Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed Netflix documentary all about her, Pretend It’s A City. Her following is now as devoted as any boy band fan club. She might be a brilliant wordsmith but she prompted a virtual ovation at the Theatre Royal just by saying, "Hi."
While Lebowitz is not a stand-up, she has the natural cadences of a classic acerbic New York comic and whatever subject she talked about, however serious, tended to include laughter. Sitting in an armchair, sporting trademark jeans and cowboy boots, she despaired of America’s gun obsession, describing an appearance in Texas during Covid where nobody wore masks but everyone had firearms.
The first half certainly tackled big themes. Most notably the recent overturning of Roe v Wade’s abortion rights. "It’s about women. It’s never been about babies," she said angrily. The Republican Party was on the receiving end of considerable spleen-venting for wanting to take America back to the Fifties. Not the 1950s, the 1850s, she quipped.
Elsewhere she offered excoriating opinions on contemporary celebrity culture, from the Kardashians (and all the "little Kardashians") to Paris Hilton. She also added her take on the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap, wondering what Smith meant by saying he was doing it to defend his wife: "I know Will Smith’s wife and she is able to defend herself."
The post-interval Q&A was a more lively free-for-all, with Lebowitz standing and answering audience enquiries. This had much more of a feel of a comedy gig, with the 71-year-old star effortlessly swatting away queries with witty retorts. She is very much a one-off, a dream dinner party guest armed with pithy one-liners. Recalling a bumpy flight, she said "it was so turbulent we basically somersaulted across the country”.
In a recent interview in the Evening Standard magazine she revealed that she would love to be Mayor of New York. Onstage her ambitions were even higher. She would like to be a member of the US Supreme Court. She listed her reasons for disliking members before adding: "Calling it the Supreme Court is an insult to Motown”
The only disappointment was that she did not have many hot takes about London, having mostly seen it through car windows recently. But she did extol the virtues of English literature. She devoured Dickens as a child, admiring his vivid imagination. She did note that the news currently involves someone called Pincher whose job was whip, which sounded straight out of one of his novels.
So much for vivid imagination, she chuckled, Dickens homed in on reality. Just like Lebowitz.
Also Palladium, W1, April 23 & 24, 2023 (lwtheatres.co.uk)
