Sofie Hagen Spins An Accidental Trip To Swansea Into Comedy Gold
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Last Updated 11 September 2019
Accidental trips are a generous muse for comedy inspiration: Withnail and I accidentally going on holiday. Super Hans accidentally running to Windsor. Now, Sofie Hagen has spun her accidental trip to Swansea into comedy gold.
Actually, it's the Danish comedian's tricksy memory that spices up this cautionary tale of sordid pubs and periods in jumpsuits on the National Express. Did Hagen really not know Swansea was in Wales? Has she actually overcome her strawberry allergy? Did she genuinely lop off a chicken's head and watch it tear around the farm headless, when she was 12?
The ill-fated jaunt to Wales' second city turns out to be a 'sex holiday' — although the Bumswing in question isn't a pendulous sex toy, but a delightful metaphor drawn from the fogged-up annals of Hagen's childhood in 'Shametown'. (The callbacks in this show, by the way, are marvellously paced and joyous.)
Hagen's act has matured since Bubblewrap; there's a frisson of Kieran Hodgson's biographical monologue whenever she becomes her mum, and an episode of Gadsby-esque dread, forming the only vacuum of silence in 60 minutes.
But the meat of Hagen's act has always been there. It's an effortless ability to pour out fluffy anecdotes specked with misery and body fluids. And the marshmallow-throated, wide-eyed purity to carry lines like "sometimes you just need to see a dick covered in blood" as if she's reading from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Sofie Hagen: The Bumswing, Soho Theatre, until 14 September
