Show reviewed: 16/03/26

Show rated: A golden shower of 4 stars!

Neptune Henriksen stars in their own one person comedy show, With Legs Wide Open, a smashing success of a show that explores Neptune’s inner workings ranging across a variety of subjects from a lifetime of trauma, mental health issues, its relationship with sex, kink as therapy and its discovery of their queer identity as a trans man. It is often said that comedy is another person’s tragedy; it was Charlie Chaplin who observed, life is a tragedy in close-up but a comedy in long-shot with the benefit of distance, time and hindsight. Neptune has pushed the boundaries of queer and gender based comedy by literally opening themselves up and letting us see all of them. And it is beautiful.

Neptune is a creature of immense emotional depth and psychologically insightful as they use their trademark dark humour to dissect the events that shaped them into the compassionate and funny human they are today. This is not an easy show to sit through if you’re someone who is not open to examining hard self truths, asking where you have come from and where you are going in life. The show raises more questions than it answers for me at least, but I found it very relatable as someone who is recovered from cPTSD and has her own parental attachment issues. It gave me flashes of why I certain ways and Neptune has a very interesting take on the landscape of their psyche.

This production is equal measures a therapy session and a comedy performance as Neptune nakedly (both figuratively and literally) delves into the depths of their life’s journey. It is part stand-up comedy, part improvisation with Neptune creating a close rapport with the audience in their crowd work but it is not a production that requires group participation. It’s just so much better if you do…

It is a very honest and vulnerable creative space and on the night I saw With Legs Wide Open, some audience members were talking among themselves creating a disturbance for other patrons of the show, Henriksen called attention to them in the kindest and most respectful way possible that reengaged the entire audience. This is a compassion comedy show for those who embrace the idea that today is day one, that this is the first time you have lived this day as this person.