By Lisa Clark
Nina Gilligan is a feisty, charming comedian “from the North” of England, who reminds me somewhat of a Mancunian Janey Godley. The show is mostly about the strength in women, health issues and middle age, except it’s not. It turns out that all of these are a preamble to where Goldfish is going.
Nina has debilitating chronic Migraines that began late in life, these affect her short term memory and make her think about her mother who had dementia at the end of her life, like a lot more women than men do. She mines laughs from this and menopause and how tough and angry the women of her mother’s generation seemed to be. She also speaks of the joy of women gathering in groups and finding strength and power in those friendship groups. Having just spent time in the north of England it was quite an experience to see the multitude of groups of girls owning the streets on a Saturday night. Her stories are funny and take up about 90% of the show.
At the time Nina’s material felt a bit all over the shop, and yes, she’s not up to Hannah Gadsby’s skill level, but this is her “Nanette” show and her final story, about being sexually assaulted by a comedy promoter, brought it all home. It only takes up a very short part of the show but the laughs stop, she leaves the stage and it’s riveting. We then hear talk about how she was part of coming out with other female comedians who’d been through the same thing and had their own #Metoo movement that made her brave enough to work this through in a show. Being off stage possibly gives her the distance to help her re-live that trauma every night but it works and she doesn’t leave us for too long.
Nina returns to us dressed as a goldfish, a running theme throughout the show, for a celebratory ending. It’s hard to know if this show would’ve worked better dramatically by ending on a blackout, that the cheery ending may feel a little tacked on out of fear of alienating her audience. But why shouldn’t she be a goldfish if she wants to be? Golden and fantastic, blowing bubbles of joy at having created uplifting art out of the darkness.
Goldfish is on at Just the Tonic Nucleus until August 25
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/nina-gilligan-goldfish