Kerry face to Face with Time

Kerry Godliman’s face has never been better known since appearing between Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington in hit comedy series Derek as the hero’s manager and friend, Hannah.

Comedy geeks might also recall her staring nonplussed at a creepy polar bear puppet which has unnaccountably appeared in her fridge in a certain Bird’s Eye advert. Or appearing on BBC’s Live At The Apollo.

Now on the road with her brand new show Face Time, it’s a sad fact none of these things are enough to draw more than a handful of people out to see her in Preston.

Even the last minute support of local girl Bethany Black, who hails from Chorley, hasn’t managed to get the home crowds out of the pub.

But Beth’s pithy retelling of the domestic events of life as Britain’s only working transsexual lesbian goth comedienne warms up those who have turned out before
Godliman bounces onstage with more energy than an excitable Labrador puppy.

Pacing energetically, she offers an hour-and-a-half of gritty 40-plus female wisdom on a head-spinningly wide range of subjects, from the wonders of technology (and how things such as Twitter and Facebook change the whole landscape for the over-40s) to snooty beauty counter assistants who can’t believe you’ve never used eyecream, to the way your infant children plot your death (by synchronising alternate periods of hyperactivity).

Her world is one that many will understand, and Face Time is a treatise on the way events and people and technology bowl us through life, meaning it never really turns out as expected, as the landscape changes before our eyes – and it’s confidently and hilariously delivered.

It’s just a great shame more people aren’t here to see it. Maybe they’re on Twitter, or being worked to death by their own children.

Judith Dornan