Rosalie Minnitt review: Clementine is utter chaos and utter glee
Image: Ben Meadows
Clementine is, on paper, an absolute nightmare. She’s Lydia Bennett meets Marianne Dashwood only more delusional and with access to TikTok. She’s “a single sack of shit”. She’s on the brink of lifelong spinsterhood thanks to her advanced age (almost 27).
I knew already from a little snippet I’d seen of Clementine a couple of months ago that I was going to be a fan of Rosalie Minnitt. To be candid, I am the target audience. I watch Pride and Prejudice (BBC version obviously!) to a near obsessive degree, and read the book not infrequently as well. I think Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility is one of the greatest films ever made. I’m not Kerri Russell in Austenland, but I’m not miles off.
Clementine as a character is up there with the best of them. Austen would be proud, if also a little terrified. She’s a mishmash of all the heroines and most of the side characters too. There’s Bridgerton in there as well, and influences of just about every Regency era material you can think of.
The show opens with audio of Pride and Prejudice’s Charlotte lamenting her official status as “burden” to her parents at the age of 27, cut alongside images of various historical women looking depressed. We then follow Clementine’s desperate search for a man to marry before the deadline of her birthday the following day. Luckily the Belby Ball is this very night, so she can do her best to avoid the indignity of being sent away to the asylum with all the other single women.
Simply put, Rosalie is brilliant in every aspect of this show. Not only is she bursting with spirit, her delivery is hilarious and her skill as a writer, undeniable. It’s line after line of absolute bangers, each one well crafted and meticulously thought through. She never makes it more than a couple of sentences without a laugh and there’s hardly time for the audience to catch a breath during the entire hour. Her indefatigable energy holds the room hostage but far from being exhausting, you just want more.
She darts about the stage in her bright pink gown with quivering intensity, snatching up props and discarding them just as quickly. The way she combines Regency with modern day cultural references is flawless. Little phrases like “girl dinner” and mentions of going to “ABBA Voyage with the girlies” get huge laughs from the audience. Like a true heroine of her time, she turns to astrology for help, leading the audience in a haunting and a bit alarming song in order to manifest herself a suitor (a part she says she hasn’t done before, but if true, demonstrates the accuracy of her comic instincts).
From Jules the two-inch-tall French dressmaker, to Jackie the vaguely Northern maid who’s main personality trait is that she likes beef, to an insufferable mother who has sewn herself into the curtains, every single character she plays adds an extra layer of delight.
I’m not ashamed to say that I was extremely emotional on the day I saw this and cried a tiny bit. And I have to be clear that it’s really not a crying sort of show. But it was the kind of crying I would normally do during a big group number of a musical because I’m just so proud of how talented everyone is. I cried in Clementine because I was having so much fun. Only one classy single tear though.
The joyful message that emerges at the end of the show ties everything in a lovely bow, and she leaves the stage in utter chaos and the audience in utter glee. And upon my word, she gives her opinion very decidedly for so young a person.
Rosalie Minnitt: Clementine is at Underbelly Cowgate (Delhi Belly) at 2:25pm until August 27th. Tickets here.
