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.
There is a lot going on, little of it performed with a light touch – but it is easy to sit back and be steamrollered by Cave’s cascading creativity and overflowing sense of fun. You want bawdy Catholic comedy? Cave’s got wet dreams with a scouse Jesus and: “Nothing makes me moister than a cloister.” You want feminist not-so-subtext? As our insufficiently passive protagonist is reminded: “Men don’t like women who are people.” There are also frantic set and hat changes, three fellow nuns with wide-ranging accents, body popping, shadow play, and a tangential flash forward to a history class taught in the present day.
Cave’s interest in the period, and sympathy for the women marooned there, shines through all this in-yer-face fooling around – even if a grinding gear-change is required to accommodate her explanation of holy visions and how they work: “What we feel is real.” If that sounds like women carving out a little power for themselves, Batilda soon reaches its limits in this uproarious, unruly comedy.
At Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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