Sexy Lamp

Review by: Paul Towers, 12/9/2019

Sexy Lamp by Katie Arnstein

Directed by Ellen Havard

Upstairs @ The Western, 11-13 September 2019

“the script was packed with  laugh out loud moments”

Yesterday we were introduced to Katie Arnstein’s world in her debut, award winning show, Bicycles & Fish. Tonight we were treated to the follow up story of her long and often arduous efforts to become an actress like her heroine Judy Garland as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

The sexy lamp of the title refers to a theory devised by Kelly Sue DeConnick whereby any strong female character can be replaced by a sexy lamp in so many male created films. The thinking behind it is that the character is in a production purely for a visual aesthetic rather than as a meaningful relevance to the story.

Katie like lists and for an hour she took us through the two most important lists in her life, written when she was still at school.

Tapping into her now skilful ability to both tell a story and also find the characters in the story, Arnstein takes us on a journey which began in a primary school Christmas show, Santa’s Snow Mobile, right through to bucking against the trend of sleazy casting agents who require gratuitous and unwarranted nudity in films and auditions. All very #MeToo.

Once again she has her trusty ukulele to hand to accompany her insightful and original songs, only this time they were funnier and pithier. In fact the entire script was packed with even more laugh out loud moments than before.

Katie Arnstein is a very engaging actress/writer who deserves all the plaudits she gets.

A double bill of both Bicycles & Fish and Sexy Lamp is on tomorrow (Friday 13^th) at Upstairs at The Western. Well worth catching.

Upstairs at The Western http://upstairsatthewestern.com/
First published on Western Gazette