Selina Mosinski Review: A Life Story Buried Beneath Base Humour

★☆☆☆☆

Selina Mosinski, best known for Charity Shop Sue, arrives at the Fringe with a life story that should be excellent fodder for a one-woman show. Growing up in Derby with dreams of moving to London and joining the Royal Shakespeare Company, poor guidance instead led her towards stripping and Page 3 modelling. There is surely comedy, emotion and plenty of material within that journey. We know Mosinski can do comedy. Unfortunately, very little of it emerges here.

Technical problems do not help. Microphone issues visibly throw Mosinski off, while poorly timed voiceovers, portraying figures including Sylvia Young and fellow strippers, regularly talk over her or leave her waiting in silence. Rather than simply feeling like unfortunate Fringe mishaps, they give parts of the production an under-rehearsed quality.

The bigger problem, however, is the material itself. The comedy repeatedly descends into plastic hairy genitals, inflatable sex dolls, simulated foot masturbation, ball smashing and endless references to nipples and shagging. Crude comedy can be brilliantly funny, but here it feels like humour at its most base. Audience participation involving Polaroids of unsuspecting audience members’ crotches only increases the discomfort. I spent much of the performance hiding behind my cup, hoping Mosinski would not approach me next.

An apron and wig are removed and replaced with such frequency that the device quickly becomes distracting, while a running joke sees Mosinski repeatedly searching for “Gary” throughout the show. The eventual reveal that she has actually been searching for “the gays” is obvious long before it arrives, making the payoff feel tired and tacky rather than clever.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that Mosinski’s actual story is considerably more interesting than the comedy being built around it. There is a show here about ambition, disappointment and an extraordinary route into entertainment, but it is buried beneath an increasing reliance on crude shock humour.

Mosinski herself deserves credit for persevering, even as audience members walked out and discomfort spread around the room. Committing to an autobiographical hour under those circumstances takes bravery, but the production now needs a ruthless rethink. Strip away the props, genital jokes and reliance on shock humour, and trust the much more interesting story underneath. At present, embarrassment consistently overwhelms the comedy.