Writer/performer and Sex Idiot (she’s reprising her 2010 comedy show over at Shedinburgh) Bryony Kimmings made a vow in 2021 to only make work that supports the planet. So after co-writing Last Christmas with Emma Thompson and collaborating on projects including the wonderful Show Pony, we find Kimmings playing herself, an anxiously attached, cigarette-craving, 40-something woman on an eco farm against her will, because of her Will (her new partner).
The posh, gilet-wearing locals, the Union Jacks flying above East Sussex doors, the mud, the nature; she hates it all. But it’s increasingly jarring for her mind and soul to ignore climate collapse, not to mention the feelings she is developing for a magnificent oak tree outside.
There are echoes of The Change, Bridget Christie’s brilliant feminist paeon to paganism and rural England, with extra songs. The Essex vowels of comedy drag songstress Diane Chorley sometimes come to mind too, as Kimmings recoils at outdoorsy life, feeling the creep of capitalist self-loathing, then sinking into escapism to cope.
Kimmings dances the line between batshit cat lady and sage witch, using bursts of Euro-dance music to offset the pious vibes she knows can become dangerously entangled with eco-activism. Skilful, fun, moving and, like a hallucinogenic forest mushroom, subtly laced with surreal, healing messages.
Bog Witch, Traverse Theatre, until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), various times