Celya AB offers us a promising premise: there are large parts of her childhood that she is unable to remember and this show is about filling those gaps. She warns us that there will be lies interspersed with the truth. She also warns us that this is “not one of those shows” – a trauma-mining hour of pathos-heavy humour, that is.
This isn’t the only standup trope that AB starts to dissect. She digs at callbacks, crowdwork, relatable humour, and the artifice involved in creating standup narratives. There are interesting ideas here, but Second Rodeo only skims the surface.
Take trauma-mining. We delve into the past with whimsical tales from her childhood in France. This soon gives way to more familiar fare about her current life – a breakup and a breakdown, dating and dildos. When we flit back to her childhood, one reason for the gaps in her memory, she tells us, is her dad’s gambling issues. The bit descends into silliness as she describes an addiction to arcade claw machines. Can we take anything seriously? Yet moments later, there is what appears to be a revelation of real turmoil. The resulting effect is disorientating.
A smooth performer, she has a languid and captivating stage presence. There are set pieces throughout that feel better developed – a recurring joke about “relatable comedians” is a winner, while her elongated act out of a bus driver starting a shift is a fun interlude. When she jokes that reviewers alerted her to weight gain by switching from describing her as a French waif to “so relatable”, she combines poetic phrasing and physical comedy to great effect.
There are many fanciful detours. Some, like her attempt to declare love in the middle of a storm, paint vivid pictures. Others, like a segment about ice-cream being the breast milk of cows, feel shakier.
By the end, we’ve strayed far from the original premise, leaving a trail of part-formed ideas. “I know having a show that doesn’t have a meaning isn’t satisfying,” AB tells us. But it’s a lack of coherence, rather than a lack of meaning that creates dissatisfaction here. Much like an arcade claw machine, the show tantalises but doesn’t always reward.
• At Soho theatre, London, until 27 January.
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