Lou Sanders made a big leap forward with her 2018 show Shame Pig, a tight hour exploring female shame and Sanders’ outre sexual adventures. Its follow-up, Say Hello to Your New Step-Mummy, isn’t in the same league. It finds Sanders as companionable as ever, as she tries to smuggle meaningful feminist lessons past her sharp sense of her own ridiculousness. But it doesn’t add up to a coherent show and – for all that Sanders is endearing company – it feels a bit low-wattage and diffuse.
It takes its cue from online snark Sanders received after appearing on the TV show Taskmaster, trolling her for – among other things – talking too much about her labia. This prompts – well, more labia material, of course, but also reflections on women’s rights to their own bodies, and the tensions between being feminist and being desirable. There are occasional insights and illuminating anecdotes – particularly the one about the school “whose mum is hottest?” contest. But Sanders’ argument doesn’t develop, occasionally states the obvious (“I don’t think that it’s anti-feminist to want to love someone”) – and can feel at odds with her standard-issue saucy material.
Some of which is amusing – if not always as much (“strap in!”) as Sanders seems to think. A midway detour into family reminiscence, taking in a song she used to sing on car journeys, feels extraneous. The strongest material concerns her year-long “man ban”, as recommended by long-distance healer “Jill in the Pyrenees”; Sanders brings their eccentric therapist/patient relationship to vivid life. Her way of dressing up self-mockery as dorky self-love, meanwhile, is as winning as ever. It’s a genial show, but not a big-hitting one.
• At Soho theatre, London, until 9 November.
