The hugely popular ‘She Go’ annual comedy event is at Norwich Theatre Playhouse with 13 shows across 9 days and I was at opening night.
The show was in two unequal halves, with the first section we had Karl Minns (one half of The Nimmo Twins) as the ‘support’ act giving a great introduction to himself and how thankful he is to have made a career taking the mickey out of Norwich. He asks if any of the audience are new to his shows, only a couple of ‘Yes’ can be heard – firstly to note is that he uses this opportunity to mention that if you are offended by any of the material then “Good – in Norfolk we are a family….literally!”. Secondly to note with only a few newbies in the audience is because Karl Minns has a massive, local, dedicated, loyal following – hence 13 shows across 9 days which are nearly all sold out.
This support section was his classic, still hilarious format of choosing the highlights of news headlines from the Norfolk press from 2024. The headlines were funny in themselves and gave the perfect opening for Karl to expand on the story and throw clever comedy insults to the unsuspecting Norfolk folk which received howls of laughter with nearly every line. Topics included food, waterfalls, football, councils, Delia Smith, and the overbudget and delayed construction projects of the Haymarket and the Castle.
After the interval She Go came out in a bright pink leisure tracksuit to a rapturous applause and said ‘S’hwee dirit?’ to which the whole audience shouted a booming “YES”. She Go has a strong Norfolk accent which adds to the playful, smart humour as she touches on general life subjects such as shopping, diets, lesbian drinking holes, hope, lawn mowers, Gt Yarmouth (which gets a beating), and Five celebrity historical links to Norfolk – which are entertaining, smart and very funny. Ending with a reading of the first chapter of her new book, which is a romance novel and utterly hysterical.
Being opening night meant a few of the gags were being tried on us in order for them to be honed to perfection or completely discarded. I liked that we were informed of sections which were very new and we were the ‘testers’, however, all the material seemed to work as everyone was laughing hard.
Karl really knows his audience. There is a very fine line between being obnoxiously rude and offensively shocking and being offensive with sharp and witty comedy and he totally has the perfect balance. There were soft gasps before the audience howled with laughter as it sunk in, or people giggled quietly on parts they were not sure whether they should be laughing! Overall it was a good humoured, highly entertaining show with playful, sharp humour that had everyone howling.
Tickets are selling rapidly with most of the shows sold out so hurry to get yours here.