Miss Brexit continues at Ermintrude at Underbelly, Bristo Square until 24 August 2025.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
This is a lively cabaret-style musical that will have you on the edge of your seat!
Maria Who’s shiny show recalls Brexit and consequences from the past decade specifically affecting young Europeans wanting to settle in the UK. It very effectively uses comedy to soften the racism expressed towards the group to offer it up to audiences today. Its unsettling how it pokes fun at the contestants competing for citizenship and reflects this back at the audience who become complicit in the xenophobia.
In its beauty pageant set-up, every contestant is feminised into a common European identity of a ‘Maria’ whilst simultaneously goaded by a series of challenges to express their distinctiveness and their motivations for wanting to settle in the UK. The music strongly supports the exploration of the characters of each ‘Queen’. The script has some fabulous one-liners, for example, on British food.
The research for the show, based on the lived experience of the performers, unpicks aspects of difficult living conditions encountered and sets up discomfort about their ‘welcome’ which continues to unravel. Punctuating the stories of the contestants’ selection and elimination are some startling in-yer-face acrobatic moves which come out of nowhere and sinister perky refrains underline how difficult the whole process is. Encouragement to the audience to be the decision-makers cleverly prompts the examination of prejudice.
Overall, this is an enjoyable show with comedic physicality that works well due to the skill of all of the actor-musicians. Its attractive Eurovision feel risks trivialising the political message, for example, when the audience votes and is encouraged to be decisively brutal, but fits its anarchic slapstick style.
One of the most hilarious moments is the final face-off between the last two contestants who appear in ‘British costume’ and spout manifestos which they think are what the audience will want to hear, linking back to the government in power at that time. This scene absolutely underlines the agenda of rejection of diverse European identities as it questions whether Britain is a European state. The final coronation of a contestant (who varies in each show according to the audience’s choice) is not as glorious as expected.
This show prompts reflection after the event, especially about who laughed and why, its overall depressing depiction of the UK and whether your outlook has been changed. This self-examination is quite complex depending on your nationality, sense of cultural identity, awareness of the historical moment this show captures and your views on its continuing currency in the wider UK and global discourse about immigration (noticeably absent from this show).
Audience participation is optional. Be warned: only put your hand up if you are comfortable with the F-word…
Charlotte Purkis
SHARE THIS POST:
