A venerable tradition in comedy once obliged anyone, on encountering an exciting female double act, to deploy the phrase “the new French and Saunders”. The final nail in its coffin is now hammered in by Shelf, whose whole show is dedicated to subverting such gender-based pigeonholing. And what fun they – and we – have while doing so! Through songs and two-hander standup, Rachel WD and Ruby Clyde’s full fringe debut traces their parallel gender and sexuality journeys – as the child of a queer couple, in Rachel’s case, born to be the new gay messiah, and for Ruby, via years of struggling to be straight.
That these journeys were travelled together (the duo are childhood friends) gives the show an appealing intimacy, and explains their easy, amused manner with one another. It’s infectious, because regular musical interludes (Ruby on guitar and vocals; Rachel on gyrating and backchat) keep the show peppy, and because their adventures in gender projection are nuanced and fresh. From the off, reflecting on their being mistaken for boys, but never men, the show (like their LOL Word colleague Chloe Petts elsewhere in town) stakes out under-charted territory – where masculine behaviour in a straight girl shades from “hot” into “gay”, say. Or where sexism reproduces itself even within queer circles, as feminine Ruby is assumed to be the property of her more masculine pal.
Weighty stuff, you might think – but it couldn’t feel less so in Shelf’s hands, because it’s handled with such a deft touch. They laugh at their own foibles, as their own gender assumptions are proven wrong. They finely balance Rachel’s attention-seeking extroversion and Ruby’s wryness. They perform lovely light songs – or half-songs – about Rachel’s imperviousness to bullying at school and to dodgy men in nightclubs, and about the nosedive in male attention Ruby experiences when she cuts her hair. What emerges is a sweet, engaging hour not only of gender-questioning, but optimistic gender-answering, as we inch closer to a world in which pigeonholes are unlatched and everyone – gay messiahs and tentative queer people both – can be who they feel themselves to be.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 28 August.
