By Lisa Clark
Oops. I seem to have accidentally drifted into the Drama category of the Fringe. And yep, 16 Postcodes did not really do it for me. It’s not Jessica Regan’s fault it wasn’t funny enough, she’s not a comedian, but it was a deeply flawed piece of theatre about finding a home, with the main glaring problem being that we only heard about 5 of the Postcodes on offer.
The 16 postcodes are an interesting conceit to hang an autobiographical show around, Jessica was born in a town in Ireland with no postcode and moved to London for drama school and stayed, living in 16 postcodes over 20 years. The postcodes are all pinned to the screen behind her in chronological order. She asked audience members to choose the next postcode (any but the 1st: Acton or the 16th: Walthamstow). A cute idea, except that, the stories were so drawn out there was only time for five of them. I felt ripped off and annoyed and heard others making similar comments as we left. The show should be called 5 Postcodes.
The stories themselves were just too long. I realised that her “getting high on mushrooms in Acton” story was dragging on for so long that we weren’t going to have enough time to hear all the stories and it made me anxious, also nonplussed, as I’ve heard better and more interesting hallucinogens stories told by accomplished comedians. Waiting in Greenwich for news of whether she’s got a part in a TV soap while wandering about a park was like Waiting for Godot. Excruciating. Glad it had a happy ending but if you are a fan of her TV Soap Doctors, you may be disappointed, there were no stories or snippets of gossip from the show she was in for ten years here. Of course maybe that was under a postcode that was not chosen, who knows?
Most of the stories did not really work well on their own. Out of order some of the tales lost a lot of context. Or did they? it was hard to be sure. When her relationship broke up for the third time, we had not heard about the previous 2 times and had no context for the line “It saved my life”, in what way, was he abusive? Were there any previous stories about him? We’ll never know.
Jessica Regan is a comfortable person to spend time with and listen to, though it felt very “Actorly” and unnatural when she was in storytelling mode but perhaps my ear is used to a more natural standup style of storytelling. There is nothing offensive or unpleasant about her stories, but it was a bit torturous to sit in a room heating up like an oven to roast us as she told them. She had a largish fan and turned it off during the stories. It wasn’t helping much anyway. Making the audience sing “Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner” at the end was less forgivable.
16 Postcodes is on at Pleasance Courtyard until August 26
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/16-postcodes