Thereâs a formula for a comedianâs first show, and itâs âthis is meâ: an hour about who they are and where they come from. Lara Ricote aced it with her 2022 debut GRL/LATNX/DEF, which won her best newcomer award at the Edinburgh fringe. But what comes next once the introductions have been made? In this case, itâs a show about Ricoteâs relationships â with her boyfriend, with her audience, and with the compulsions and complexities that can get in the way of both.
Itâs not the first time a comic has compared the performer-audience interaction to a real-world relationship, but Ricote takes it further, and more quirkily, than most. She endows us with a name; she asks that we make her laugh, not just vice versa. All of this, seemingly, is by way of necessary practice for our host, a relationship ingenue, she tells us, who off stage is playing catchup with her more experienced other half. Thereâs talk of couples therapy, and of Ricoteâs mixed feelings that this âfirst adult relationshipâ might be the only one she ever has.
Thereâs a story here, then, and a knotty one â but it never quite comes into focus behind the dotty goings-on in the foreground, whether thatâs Ricote singing a gibberish cover version of Let It Be, impersonating her own farts, or staging the ambush of her gig by â well, I wonât spoil that one. Big laughs derive from her counsellorâs catch-all explanation for Ricoteâs grown-up dysfunction, and thereâs a captivating anecdote about a dog purchase that miscarries.
But what are we to make of the 27-year-old cultivating her caring instincts by adopting a bloodthirsty tick? Or of the shaggy dog story about sexual roleplay that devolves into an argument about visas? Endearingly offbeat? Certainly â with her cartoon voice and screwy demeanour, Ricote is nothing if not lovable. But I left feeling that some truths here were more obscured than revealed by those stories, by the audience/boyfriend parallels, and indeed by Ricoteâs closing homily about the centrality of relationships. Itâs a winning sophomore set, but thereâs something evasive about it.
At Soho theatre, London, until 2 March.
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