Crudi Dench is the star of her brand new fictional TV show pilot, where she and her celebrity guests (that’s us, the audience) help callers with their personal dilemmas. It’s her chance to shine and, thankfully for us, she grabs it with both hands.
From the moment we took our seats, Crudi invited us onto the set of her wonderfully chaotic TV show. Armed with little more than a giant camp telephone, she fields a series of brilliantly random calls from audience members seeking advice. The oversized phone gets a lot of stage time throughout the performance and could have easily stolen the spotlight, were it not for Crudi’s magnetic presence. This is very much her show.
It quickly became clear there would be a fair bit of audience participation. Crudi spent much of the evening weaving through the crowd in search of ‘celebrity’ guests to join her on stage – we had Kofi Annan and Vanessa Feltz for starters – and help solve her callers’ problems. Thankfully (as we were feeling a bit shy) we managed to avoid her gaze and microphone on this occasion. Phew.
The audience interaction could easily have felt forced, but Crudi has a knack for putting people at ease. Her quick wit and warm rapport had us all belly laughing throughout. Yet beneath the camp tomfoolery and larger-than-life character, there were also moments of genuine poignancy. It can be a difficult balance to strike without it feeling shoehorned in, but she pitches this perfectly.
At the start of the show, Crudi made us a promise: if we successfully helped enough callers, she’d reward us with something special. We won’t spoil exactly what happened, but let’s just say she honoured her side of the bargain in a way none of us saw coming.
This may have been the debut performance of Someone Help Her!, but you’d never have guessed it. Crudi is a one-woman comedy powerhouse and her show felt polished, confident and packed with laughs. This is one TV show that needs to be picked up for a series.
Sadly, this was her only Brighton Fringe performance this year. The good news is she’s touring elsewhere around the country, so there are still opportunities to catch her (she’s in London on 12th July, as well as York and Edinburgh). Or perhaps give her a ring yourself – if you dare…
By Kemi Ayoola
