Tatty Macleod review: French v. English comedy with gusto and pathos

Image: Rachel Sherlock

Tatty Macleod has, she says, French-dar. Sadly, in this show, despite honing in on an abundance of stripy tops and judgemental looks, her success rate at pinpointing the French people in the audience is zero. There even turns out to be a Frenchman on the front row.

Tatty has made a name online with her French vs English sketches, but spends only a little time recreating these. It’s a good thing because what works so brilliantly online often leaves something lacking in the room. Instead, we go deeper.

She isn’t, many are surprised to find out, French. But she did grow up there, and paints a vivid picture of her life as a child in France, with her mum’s Joanna Lumley energy and Bob the Builder spirit. Being a divorced mother to a coven of witches in a traditional town who also never really learned French, it made their time there not entirely comfortable. She did learn a lot about the people though, and brings them to life with gusto.

Tatty jumps between these characters nimbly, demonstrating well why her videos have garnered her such a following online. A particular highlight is her interaction with a waiter, which manages to subvert the clichés she introduces before and challenge her own assumptions.

But the best bits are those with pathos, as we learn that her experience of these two cultures has left her at least a bit at odds with both of them. The discovery that she’s too English for France and too French for England is something she is still wrestling with now, particularly in the wake of Brexit. She brings it to a close with a bittersweet and quite beautiful ending that ensures the audience leaves feeling a suitable amount of French melancholy.

Tatty Macleod: Fugue is at Monkey Barrel 4, 2:10pm, until August 27th. Tickets here