I saw Patti Harrison’s ‘Tits’ (so to speak) at last year’s Fringe, when her second Edinburgh show ran as a work in progress. Back then it opened with a bit in which the scabrously surreal US comic spent some time taking issue with my review of her previous show, noting that I had failed to realise it was a WIP too (nobody told me!).
I’m grateful to report that bit has been cut from ‘My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE’. But otherwise it’s as brilliant as I remember, an audaciously weird and eye-wateringly lurid hour that frequently sails much closer to performance art than ‘comedy’ per se. It’s unabashedly challenging, but in a way that’s far more thrilling and unsettling than its predecessor.
It has a nominally simple premise, which is that Harrison has been in therapy and has emerged from it as a better, kinder person who speaks only in maddening affirmations – a bit she is entirely capable of keeping up all evening.
The humour come from the fact that beyond her rictus grin she is a Chernobyl-grade mess, so fucked up that much of the comedy simply comes from how jaw-dropping it is that she even thought of half this stuff, let alone included it in her show. The juxtaposition of sickly sweet therapese and what I think is fair to describe as horrors from the abyss makes for a delectably insane cocktail. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, especially if you have an aversion to, uh, body horror (which is mild spoiler but truly it barely scratches the surface). But if you’ve got the constitution for it, you’ll have a ball.
Underneath the gross out stuff, it feels like Harrison is playing a slyer game with us. The show barely addresses the fact she’s trans, but at the risk of having totally misunderstood what she’s at here, it feels like we’re constantly being teased over this. Uplifting stories of affirming gender journeys are ten a penny at the Fringe these days, and Harrison seems to parody the form, constantly setting up a heartfelt story about her childhood then switching subject to sell us a bathetic dummy. Her character also maintains a bitter obsession with women with ovaries, frequently taking stinging swipes at them apropos of nothing – there are a couple of lines so toxic they’d strip paint from the walls.
Whether Harrison is giving ironic vent to her real insecurities, mocking trans narrative cliches or just more generally fucking with us – which much of the show undoubtedly is – it’s the cherry on top of a truly virtuoso hour, as hilarious as it is repulsive, the two inextricably bound together.