Sketcherella
1662, Smock Alley Theatre
★★★★☆
With Sketcherella, the phenomenally talented Erin McGathy – a quadruple threat of singing, wicked comic chops, costume changes and interpretive writhing to a saxophone solo – headlines what must be Dublin Fringe Festival’s funniest show.
Loosely structured around a similarly named Disney princess, the performance comprises hilariously misogynist tales from the writers’ room, storybook chapters and an anthropomorphic rat.
McGathy’s Sketcherella/Dee works in the rodent-infested basement of the land’s only TV network, a land far, far away but “with the same cultural references” as our own.
She dreams of being a professional writer but is hampered by dimwit and privileged bosses. Their troublingly sexist comedy-skit suggestion involving Alexa, jazz and murder is so awful that it could only have come from real-life experience. So it proves.
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McGathy blazes through a series of brilliant conceits: “How about Game of Thrones, but without rape!” she brainstorms. There are winning zingers. Rats are like unpopular girlfriends: “But they’re actually smart!” There are barbed observations about women working in show business. There are fun text-message exchanges on a big screen.
The jokes arrive so thick and fast in one parody musical number that I wish for subtitles. A second song lampoons Leonardo DiCaprio’s well-documented romantic life from the perspective of his yacht.
My favourite section is a workshop in “dead wife acting”, during which McGathy alternates between wistful poses and blustering tutorspeak: “I am not playing a woman. I am playing an idea.”
An alumnus of the Upright Citizen Brigade improv group, the sitcom Community and (bizarrely) the Terrence Malick film Knight of Cups, McGathy parlays her extensive experience as a podcaster into a parodic version of wellness and mindfulness apps. “My inner goddess greets your inner goddess,” she says, impossibly breathily. But here come the interjections of sponsors, including a loud, incredibly dumb true-life crime broadcast and an advertisement for a bawdily named water product.
“There are still tickets left for tomorrow night,” McGathy says as she takes a bow. There really shouldn’t be. Make haste.
Continues at Smock Alley Theatre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Tuesday, September 17th
