Sarah Franken

SARAH (NEE WILL) FRANKEN: WHO KEEPS MAKING ALL THESE PEOPLE?

STAND 5 34-38 YORK PLACE  

7TH-30TH AUGUST 9PM

Sarah Franken as ISIS on the 10th of August 

Will Franken has just come out of the closet as transgender, he is now she and she is called Sarah.  She admits freely during the show that she's going straight back in the closet if the shows not a success.  A joke for sure as this is no recent development, Franken admits to having spent a period of time as a woman before, while living in San Francisco and the name comes from a girl she was inspired by as a teen.  That being said she is visibly nervous as we enter Stand 5 and she air guitars a warm up at the back of the room.  This is a function room and I admit to being pretty surprised when I was led through a warren of corridors in a posh hotel instead of the usual DIY style grime of Stand 1. There's even water running down the walls in the canopied garden!
To understand the style of performance you just have to imagine Monty Python operating with only one person and no props.  It's fast paced with words and topics linking one character to the next in a way that seems almost like a machine gun that never needs a reload.

 Sarah creates unlikely situations and characters from the outset.  Cleverly combining completely conflicting character traits and social identities.  Are ISIS members really discussing performance and lesbian relationships? No, I shouldn't have thought so, but it's a combination of well polished, convincing character accents and the absurdness of it that makes it possible to let go and the laughter roll with it.

There is a stream of lewd sexual conversation between soldiers and their Essex accented wives but these again veer to absurdity so offence, in my mind, would be difficult to achieve.  One man who loves wanking so much he wishes his wife to dress up as a massive hand, this is very much in keeping with the surreal humor of Woody Allen and indeed Allen's voice is one of the many celebrity voices we hear throughout the show.

Mental illness is dealt with, a desire to self destruct through rejection is played out.  Sarah plays on our emotions, she pretends to be in the midst of an onstage breakdown.  Sometimes we don't know whether to take it seriously or not.  Somber atmospheres being created to be suddenly diminished again by the ridiculous, bipolar is dismissed as something we used to call emotions.  For all the silliness there is always something gritty and real in the words that are used.  A portrayal of a highly exaggerated but very real impression of the way that the the health care system deals with the subject of mental health leaves you thinking, questioning. 

 Other dark matter is discussed, unexpectedly the Necronomicon makes a fleeting appearance as precursor to a ghost child in Franken's trade mark backwards devil record voice.  The real dark matter, however, is the subject of abortion.  This sketch is again absurd but completely hilarious and although I'd love to quote it, I will not spoil it for those of you that go to see the show.  It is truly something from Reanimator and my sides almost split.  The show is broken up by various news reports, at this point some of the most preposterous made up names are flung around, Scottish Fergus McJagger and London toff Sir Baron Lord Viceroy.

This show deals with a plethora of important political and social issues from a person who is ready to embrace the worlds new diverse nature and make a mockery of those who cannot accept it in the process.

As well as being a personally transformative breakthrough for Sarah Franken this is a historically relevant show. Albeit dark and twisted it is brilliantly witty and shouldn't be missed.  Difficult and awkward subject matter should be ridiculed in this way, it pushes it out into the sphere of conversation instead of rotting away with the skeletons in the closet.  Who Keeps Making all these People runs till the 30th of August.

            Sarah dedicated this show to everybody that stands up for and believes in free speech.