[COMEDY/Stand-up ~ Victoria, SA Premiere]
Anna Piper Scott: None Of That Queer Stuff
The Bally at Gluttony, Thurs 29 Feb, 2024.
As I take a seat in The Bally, the Anna Piper Scott audience is only about 25-strong. The comedian is not disheartened by this underwhelming number. Instead, she takes the opportunity to get to know each punter before her set begins – treating us to a few individually tailored quips which instantly creates an endearing atmosphere. My shoulders drop, we’re in safe hands with this one.
After declaring herself as trans, poly, lesbian and ADHD, Scott uses a series of hilarious self-deprecating analysis to unpack what it means to be all of these things in a world full of doubt, rigidity and divisive gender politicking. From the outset, you get the sense that this performance is the much-needed mediation to close the chasms between identity, ethics and evolution.
With insightful analogies such as – likening her rash decision to come off her ADHD medication after acing her studies to being in a thunderstorm with an umbrella and deciding you’re dry enough to toss said umbrella aside despite continued torrential rain – Scott gives her audience a colourful visual account of what it means to be neurodivergent whilst covering all the grey areas that engulf it.
Despite her enthusiasm for being part of (what she refers to as) ‘The Rainbow Mafia’ aka LGBTQIA+ community, Scott doesn’t gloss over what it means to exist in it progressively. With a combination of disdain and adoration for certain tropes and terminologies, she had us in fits of laughter over reflections such as: trams are part-train and part-bus and therefore the non-binary form of public transport, and the use of the term Ethical Non Monogamy (ENM) is like a restaurant advertising its burgers as asbestos free. The need to declare the obvious is suspicious at the best of times!
On the whole, the Anna Piper Scott experience is one you don’t want to miss. The show covers everything you need to know about relationships, sub-cultures and gender politics, whilst throwing a cheeky welcoming wink to cis and heteronormative folk expressing themselves freely and with purpose. This performance will add so much more than a few pronouns to your vernacular…an essential unravelling of the coarse tapestry that is social identity with a clever and considerate hand at the helm.