In no sense is Emma Sidi actually Sue Gray. She doesn’t look like Sue Gray. She doesn’t sound like Sue Gray. She is completely the wrong age to be the ex-civil servant now Downing Street chief of staff, something she doubles down on by providing nonsensical biographical details like the fact that landfill indie also rans The Wombats played at her freshers’ week.
And yet… Emma Sidi is Sue Gray. The Woking-raised comic absolutely 100 percent commits to the bit here: bar a couple of batshit Spanish interludes (when she is technically still being Sue Gray) then this whole show is performed entirely in one character. Her Gray is a lairy, boozy Essex Girl type who nonetheless spends the entire show regaling us with a life story that does by and large correspond to Gray’s. Or at least it does when it comes to the bigger picture stuff. She worked with Rishi Sunak, an incorrigible office prankster who Gray was both irritated by and had a crush on. She had a frosty relationship with Cressida Dick, who didn’t lend her a tampon one time. She was blown away by Keir Starmer, who she describes as ‘dripping with rizz’. Also she is occasionally menaced by an elf who wants to destroy her electronic devices, something she finds so traumatic she can only discuss it in Spanish.
It isn’t really satire: part of the point is that we don’t really know very much about Sue Gray, therefore Sidi isn’t really sending her up. A few tart asides apart, it’s not even particularly political, with thornier stuff like Partygate largely breezed past.
But truly it is so, so funny. The sheer absurdity accounts for a lot of it: we don’t really know what Sue Gray is like, but we do know she’s not a good time millennial Essex Girl. It’s just very amusing that this is what Sidi has come up with. If it’s not hugely political it is intrinsically very funny to hear her talk about our nation’s politicians as if they were just a bunch of dumbass lads from down the office (which I suppose is satire of sorts). And all credit to Sidi as a performer: her Gray is ridiculous but also unstoppably likeable - it’s just huge fun spending time in her company.
Other, more timid comics might do something like this as one character in a sketch show. That Sidi has crafted an entire hour out of it is entirely preposterous, but she absolutely gets away with it. A ludicrous triumph.