My One Night Stand with Bryony Kimmings - a Review of 'Sex Idiot'.

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Before going to see Bryony Kimmings' Sex Idiot I expected some sexual revelations, some naughty songs and a good dose of good humour. I write this sounding like a previously pious man from the the middle classes visiting from the middle ages. No. Truth be told, I am no time travelling monk but I have been moved. Emotionally moved.

YES, there is the laugh out loud fanny song that is genuinely catchy and YES there is enough gratuitous side boob to have the picture editor at the Daily Mail ferociously foaming at the mouth. But, more than that, there is an exposed modern wasteland of real, raw emotion and true sexual insight. Not just an exposé of Kimmings' adventures into sexuality, but our own too.

Opening with the sexual exam we then take an almost Dickensian Christmas Carol style tour of Kimmings' colourful sexual history.

There was the nesting scenario with the one she nearly married, picking out Ikea furniture and replacing career ambitions with comedy DVDs, told beautifully in an uncompromisingly direct poem spoken with dry wit and rehearsed cool.

There is dance. Funny, clever, subversive and true. A sexual encounter performed energetically, highlights perfectly the painful one night stand desire to appear experienced whilst looking like a twat. And all in mime. Perfection!


A minimalist physical theatre piece showed Kimmings adorning her body with lipstick kisses to the 'One is the Loneliest Number'. This felt to this writer like the soul of the piece. Anchoring Kimmings' behaviours, transgressions and betrayals as nothing more than stumbles along the road from loneliness to love. Personally very moving.

To detail further is to list Kimmings' sex life in a way she so cleverly avoids. YES, this is a story of how she got a sexually transmitted disease. But it's the story of everyone becoming a living sexual being with history and a journey.

With her signature flair for comedy and her warmth, wit and ability to tell a great tale, Sex Idiot is a wonderful and thoroughly modern classic.

www.bryonykimmings.com
Follow Bryony on twitter


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