Su Mi review: Brash, raw and raucously fun
Edinburgh Fringe
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Edinburgh Fringe 〰️
Image: Michael Julings
by Zoe Paskett
The show doesn’t start until someone opens the curtains. Behind them, framed as if in a gallery, sits a manically grotesque vision: With some teeth blacked out, lipstick painted way outside the lines, Su Mi tongues the glass, breathes heavily on it, even draws a sweet little heart in the condensation. And then they’re pied.
It’s the perfect opening to a show that is so many things at once: gross in some places, soft in others, raucously fun all the way through. It’s a clown show that fully celebrates the joy of playing around. At every opportunity, Su takes the wilder option and runs with it.
THISMOTHERPHUCKER is the walking, thrusting definition of loud and proud. The goal is to absolutely obliterate the stereotype of Asian women being quiet (QUIET!), which Su achieves in abundance. They smash through all of the barriers placed before them: those hurdles of being a queer, working class, performer of colour in a predominantly cis white space, the racism, the harder work they have to do just to be able to perform.
With help from their actual childhood self, Su returns to the nineties to heal, with all of its Peter Andre and wassups and 5318008 (iykyk). It’s a joyously interactive hour, and helps that most of the room are nineties babies. Su feeds off the audience with relish, encouraging us just to let go and remember simpler times when a clown honking a horn was funny. Which it still is, by the way, especially as Su is covered in about a dozen of them.
There are delightful costume changes and unexpected songs – the stark contrast between their gaudy make-up and wig and the sweet vocals is brilliant and adds an extra level of hilarity.
Brash, raw and raucous, Su pinpoints what they’re expected to be and steers as far away from that as possible. It’s clear when a show has been built up through interaction with queer audiences and given the space to grow in an environment different from the cis white comedy space. It’s wonderful to see someone release themselves fully. It gives us the freedom to do the same.
Let go, have fun, release your inner child.
Su Mi: THISMOTHERPHUCKER is at Underbelly Cowgate (Iron Belly) at 18:40. Tickets here
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