In Nanette, Hannah Gadsby refused to pretend her personal pain was funny – and threw down a gauntlet to the comedy world. But there’s life yet in standup as a means to express trauma, as Harriet Kemsley demonstrates in her autobiographical touring show Slutty Joan. About slut-shaming and the prejudice against female sexual appetite, in Kemsley’s ebullient telling it’s all good unclean fun, broaching the subject with a madcap, self-mocking touch – and not structured in any way to suggest the #MeToo intimacies to come.
They arrive with a tonal shift but no grinding of gears. All those goofy jokes about chlamydia and teenage “fingering” are revealed as part of a grander plan: to celebrate Kemsley’s love of sex, but also to absolve the shame of anyone who, like her, blamed themselves for their abuse. It works, because there’s not a shred of piety in the delivery, and because the preceding 45 minutes parade real-world sex across the stage in all its glory, squalor and emotional complexity.
Kemsley is a dotty, high-strung tour guide through her adolescent (and adult) sexual foibles, and she’s packing some high-calibre jokes: on the confusion between being slutty and just not knowing how to say goodbye; on the requirement to notify previous partners about STDs. Her comic style – barely keeping a lid on her own mania – serves well her arguments about the pressure on girls to feign modesty, and take responsibility for their own safety. Whether it is demonstrating why Louis CK’s victims can’t just walk away, or blaming Milo Yiannopoulos for Kemsley’s education in men, Slutty Joan is a lovely show about the gendered politics of promiscuity.
• Slutty Jane is at Soho theatre, London, until 30 March. Then touring.
