Jo Caulfield... Won't Shut Up!

The first thing comedians at the North Wall Arts Centre comment on is the venue itself: for Jo Caulfield, it reminded her of doing a “prison gig”. Summertown, and the parade on which the theatre lies, also formed the content of her ice-breaking intro: the wine-tasting café, where people had brought their kids along; the shop where “everything is Vanilla”. The comedienne claimed that Oxford had made it onto her shortlist of places to move to, a fact that was quickly forgotten once she elicited audience feedback and discovered that “a lot of traffic issues” accompanied the beautiful city architecture. These comments formed part of the show’s second-half, where participation (via slips of paper handed in during the interval) allowed Caulfield to fill time with audience members’ likes/dislikes. A brief glance over today’s Oxford Mail also made the show seem more personal and tailor-made.

The show was undoubtedly in keeping with current events (the recession, global terrorism, MP’s expenses, identity theft) as well as an assortment of fairly universal topics, such as people in love, clothes shopping and the ‘youth of today’. This led to some amusing anecdotes, such as the grandmother who confused Ikea and Al-Qaida; and the trend for celebrity endorsement (“Heather Mills-McCartney is bringing out a line of wood varnishes”). Caulfield also made mention of several television programmes, sparking off a chain of thoughts that included pitching a talking fridge in Dragons’ Den (“it’d tell you exactly what was making that funny smell”).

Making no apologies or secret of the fact that married life isn’t all roses, Jo Caulfield engaged her audience on issues that they could relate to (“why does my husband ask me if he likes cous cous?”), especially during a particularly good sketch ripping off magazine questionnaires on romance.

Having seen and heard much of Caulfield’s material before, the show did feel a little repetitive at times – the argument, I suppose, would be that this is an eco-friendly form of comedy – yet the mood was light enough and a good evening’s entertainment was provided, even if it wasn’t particularly memorable.

Felicity Marks (DI Reviewer), 01/02/10

---