Anna Burnside reviews ‘a delightful piece of work, observational yet absurd, cleverly constructed but with flashes of improvisation’.
Harriet the theatre volunteer welcomes us to the venue and hands out kazoos. When we are all seated and there is no Susan Harrison on the stage she goes behind the rail of costumes on the tiny stage and gives herself a talking to as she removes Harriet’s dowdy brown wig and replaces it with a mangled blonde number that appears to have been slept in.
And, with the addition of two marshmallows in her cheeks, Susan Harrison switches from Harriet to Sindy, a 1970s doll with chronically low self-esteem.
Over an hour she is also an unbearable podcaster, a rubbish contortionist, a neddy panda and a woman who has swallowed a girl who was in a well.
Should I Still Be Doing This? covers Harrison’s full character comedy CV: a tremendous range of accents, ventriloquism (sort of), improv, clowning, even origami. Audience participation comes during a press conference for the little girl down the well, who can be directly questioned via a long cardboard tube pointed at Harrison’s mouth.
And playing the kazoo.
Comedy is the throughline and there are great running jokes. Mike Leigh is making a Sindy-type film, in which the protagonist has PTSD. There is even a happyish ending for that little girl from the well.
This is a delightful piece of work, observational yet absurd, cleverly constructed but with flashes of improvisation. To answer the question set by the show’s title: yes, yes, yes.
Susan Harrison: Should I Still Be Doing This? performs at the Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Pip) at 19:40 until August 24, 2025 (no performance on the 12th or 18th).
Photo by Matt Stronge.
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