Review: The Fanny Hill Project V.2.0

The Bike Shed Theatre was the perfect venue for the recent performances of TheatreState’s intimate and absurd brand of theatre.

The Fanny Hill Project V 2.0 came to the bike shed following a run in London and a earlier summer run at the Edinburgh fringe. The piece juxtaposed the stories of Fanny Hill, a literary creation of an eighteenth century prostitute, penned by John Cleland, with the autobiographical account of a graduate drama student, Tessa, who worked at a foot fetish parlour in New York.

The performance started in true untraditional fashion with some audience participation in the form of a drinking game ‘Never have I ever’. This was a humorous introduction to the confessional theme in which various parallels between Tessa’s decision to sell her feet and Fanny Hill’s decision to sell her body, were drawn out. The set revolved around a DJ booth which set unravelled in chaotic humorous fashion ; drinks were spilled, microphones were knocked over and the DJ booth was exposed as a shaky infrastructure, just as the performers blithe confidence in sexual humour was dismantled as something darker and more troubling.

The confessional element and periods of exhibitionism sustained a strong and provoking tension throughout. The ‘confessions’ into the microphone were interspersed with dance, pillow fights and teen film montage which pitted cloying modern day culture against the surreal underworld explored by Fanny Hill. It is a shame that Fanny Hill is a male literary creation, as the opportunity to link a historical female perspective on prostitution with Tessa’s contemporary experience was very much mediated through a male lens.

The most compelling aspect of the performance was no doubt the platform given to Tessa to tell her own story, which she did with a gentle irony. Her quiet confessional also operated as an effective foil to the more overtly theatricalised story telling of the actress playing Fanny Hill. The rapport between the two female performers , which was often a sort of exasperated hilarity with one another’s performances, was also rewarding and deliberately exposed at various points in the performance.

An intimate, thought provoking and enjoyable piece of theatre from TheatreState, which put the fictional relationship between two women’s experiences of prostitution, and the relationship of two female performers, at centre stage.