It’s a tale as old as time and a song as old as rhyme. Beauty is painful and beastliness is punishable. For a young girl trying to break the glass ceiling of her blossoming rose’s bell jar there’s just no wiggle room.
Written and performed by Celeste Cahn, A Lady Does Not Scratch Her Crotch is permeated with plenty of (a little too) personal details but carries a near universal appeal. Partially thanks to the ubiquity of Disney but in greater part due to the depressing universality of coming-of-age angst and female sexual frustration, A Lady Does Not Scratch Her Crotch hits right in the soft spots of its audience.
Cahn is in turns pathetic and poised, cringe-inducing and awe-inspiring. Her generosity with the audience is palpable (really, you can touch, and we’re not playing by Pretty Woman rules here, kissing is allowed) and the kindness she demonstrates towards her extremely concupiscent inner child is as heartfelt as it can be hard to watch.
The play trots within the bounds of the Beauty and the Beast cinematic universe, only venturing out for brief excursions into hot topics like internet porn, fatherhood, and their very uneasy intersection, but it rears at almost every conceivable turn and leaves no trope untransformed. Unlike Lumiere’s blowout feast, nothing about this show is “in perfect taste” and thank heavens for that. Be her guest, put her service to the test, prop your feet up, and eat up.
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 14th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: