Comedy Festival 2018: Maddie Rice in Fleabag makes a bad feminist ★★★★

MADDIE Rice’s character in the comic-tragic monologue, Fleabag, is a hypersexual, boozy 20-something who is vulgar, funny, dislikeable, deeply flawed – and seriously sad.

MADDIE Rice’s character in the comic-tragic monologue, Fleabag, is a hypersexual, boozy 20-something who is vulgar, funny, dislikeable, deeply flawed – and seriously sad.

Almost everything she says or does is offensive, and it is difficult to repress howls of horror or hilarity – depending on your perspective – as she describes her drunken hook-ups, bizarre behaviour, dysfunctional relationships and her shameful secret.

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Rice’s performance is audacious and her delivery seamless in this theatrical piece written, and originally performed, by UK comedy wunderkind, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who then transformed it into a hit TV series of the same name.

Fleabag is a self-absorbed, self-confessed ‘bad feminist’ who is obsessed with sex – meaningless sex – and who calculates her self-worth by her ability to attract men – any men, lots of men – no matter how little she fancies them.

Maddie Rice in Fleabag. xx xx xx

Rice perches on a stool for the entire hour, relating Fleabag’s outrageous narrative that introduces us to her guinea pig themed cafe that she ran with her best friend, Boo, until recently when Boo met her untimely and startling death.

She populates the story with characters from Fleabag’s life: her nervy, successful sister; her negligent father; Harry, her absent lover; the rodent-faced bloke she picks up on a train; and old Joe, the relentlessly cheerful, regular cafe customer.

Fleabag’s audacity and grotesquery will leave you gaping, so be prepared to laugh, or be appalled, or both.

Maddie Rice in Fleabag

At The Coopers Malthouse, 113 Sturt St. Southbank, until April 22.

comedyfestival.com.au