Priya Hall review: A queer celebration of family and Danish sperm banks

Image: Rachel Sherlock

I didn’t know I was going to come away from this Fringe with such intimate knowledge of Danish sperm banks, but I’m not altogether surprised. You always learn things here you didn’t have on your bingo card.

Priya Hall’s debut Grandmother’s Daughter is a twisting, turning, exquisitely queer tale of uprooting everything.

Having ended her six-year long relationship with a man to shack up with a “tiny little lesbian”, she finds herself having to do a series of drive-by coming outs to the people in her life who didn’t know she was queer. These include her grandparents, who Priya paints so vividly and with such love: her nana Sheila from the Valleys, who has a criminal record and is pro the decriminalisation of drugs because she “wants to try speed again”, and her Indian grandfather who speaks five languages, learning English from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and moved back and forth to the UK three times because Priya’s mum stopped speaking in protest.

She’s an excellent and warm storyteller, helped by the fact that she has an important story to tell. She and her partner have decided to have a baby — something that Priya has wanted ever since she was one — and unfortunately, no amount of trying on their part has so far resulted in success.

For straight people (indulge me in presuming I know what they’re thinking), this show has to be an eye-opener for what it takes financially and emotionally to have a baby in a society that isn’t set up for you to do that. It becomes clear that the places you can go, despite how much they are used by queer people, are most definitely not designed for us. There are a lot of decisions to make and A LOT of money to spend (the timing of which Priya acknowledges as interesting, given that both of them are making their Fringe debuts this year).

Ok, now back to the sperm banks, which somehow delivers a hilarious and wonderfully innovative take on the oft-approached topic of cultural differences, and I’d wager you’ve never heard the phrase “like Argos for cum” before (but, obviously, because the gays be turning out, there are people in the audience who too have had the pleasure of browsing these databases).

Yes, the landscape for queer families is bleak at the moment, and Priya mourns the loss of all the money and energy they’ll have put into the process of conceiving before a baby even arrives, but there is hope in her realisation that she has a community ready and waiting to help in any way they can (and then I got emotional).

Despite the difficulties involved in this process, Priya’s show is a celebration of family, both born and found, and I leave feeling buoyed and with an unfamiliar sensation of curiosity about Danish sperm banks.

Priya Hall: Grandmother’s Daughter is at Monkey Barrel 2, at 4:20pm until August 27th. Tickets here.