EDINBURGH 2023: Review: AMY MATTHEWS: I FEEL LIKE I'M MADE OF SPIDERS, Monkey Barrel
Amy Matthews returns to the Fringe with an introspective hour of comedy.
In last year's review of Amy Matthews' Fringe show Moreover, The Moon I noted that Matthews' show had something for everybody. However, her material could sometimes be a little "too British" or focus too heavily on growing up in the early 90s/2000s, risking alienating audiences outside of Britain or outside of that age range. With I Feel Like I'm Made of Spiders it seems certain that this is no longer a risk that Mathews need to worry about.
Matthews opens the show with an array of crazed lighting and even crazier background noise all the while she stands alone behind the mic (in her "distractingly glamourous brown wool suit", none the less), before a packed room at the Monkey Barrel.
As the noises grow and grow and her breathing becomes more panicked everything suddenly shuts off before she quips "so yeah it's been an intense year." It's an excellent open that fills the audience with anxiety, fear and intrigue before quickly being slammed back into the reality that this is a comedy show, filling the room with laughter. If anything sums up this show it is this opening; two entirely seperate entities disconnected from one another yet all the while dancing together in a symbiotic relationship - tragedy and comedy.
The show revolves around Matthews' year of two relationships, one after the other and the overwhelming heartbreak that came at the end of them, resulting in her entering a dissociative state (the Wes Anderson of mental illness as she calls it).
Throughout the hour Matthews finds the balance between tragedy and comedy, sometimes allowing the two to cross paths and at others keeping them worlds apart. It is a show reminiscent of John Mulaney's Baby J; it leans a little on the serious side at times, with prolonged periods without laughter but which is often worth it simply to allow Matthews to shine as a storyteller. Besides, once the laughter returns it is well worth the wait.
It is a sweet show, one that feels as therapeautic for the audience as it does for Matthews. Opposite the more serious notes of the hour there are some hilariously silly routines, perhaps the greatest being that of a child in her school who made origami swans.
There are some occasional gags which become somewhat repetitive - the recurring joke of her talking to her friend while their children run around certainly suffers from diminishing returns - but ultimately the sillier gags of the show balance out the proceedings quite nicely. More so, the way in which Matthews brings all of the elements of her show together at the end of the hour is a nice climax to an already great hour of stand up.
With I Feel Like I'm Made of Spiders Amy Matthews shows true growth, not just as a comedian but as a human being, presenting a deeply personal period in her life and using it for both laughs and therapy.
Amy Matthews: I Feel Like I'm Made of Spiders runs at the Monkey Barrel until 27 August.
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