[2013034] Abdicating Adulthood
Nikki Britton @ The Tuxedo Cat – Cat Bowl
8:30pm, Wed 20 Feb 2013
Nikki Britton’s feeling a little bit… well, wrong: all her friends are doing the traditional “growing up” thing, what with their marriages and children and buying houses and whatnot. And I’m with her in spirit… although (at least) a decade older, I’ve been subject to similar expectations from friends and family – to be fair, though, I think I’ve pushed through the age barrier to the point where the expectations have disappeared and have been replaced by pity.
But Nikki is determined to eschew the expectations of others, and chase her own dreams; and, in front of a crowd of maybe twenty-or-so (mostly women), she proceeded to let us know about some of her dreams – and the realities that get in the way. The core of the show was based around her work (helping sick kids by playing Captain Starlight for the Starlight Foundation), and this was very cleverly used to control the pacing of her performance – the giddy highs and sober lows of her material all came from tales of working with children. But there’s also her dream-fulfilling sojourn to France, oddball stories of friends’ weddings, and weird dating stories (the repressed religious beau was brilliantly portrayed).
Though the performance started a bit flat, Britton’s boundless enthusiasm is infectious, and her humour – whilst rarely breaking new ground – is just plain good-natured and fun… and by the time the handful of males (including, surprisingly, myself) in the audience had been assembled to crowd-surf (well… carry, in an attempt to fly) Britton from the stage to end the show, she’s won me over. Abdicating Adulthood was a joyous little sherbet of a show, effervescent and positive and… well, nice.