Best known as online icon Charity Shop Sue, Puss in Boots, is somewhat of an origin story for Selina Mosinski. On a quest for fame and fortune in London, and guided by a fairy godmother, the late Sylvia Young (of theatre school fame, and an excellent bit of video design), Mosinski makes a pit stop at Derby’s Puss in Boots strip club, lured in by the promise of an agent and acting gigs and trapped there for some time.
Told via a cast of underwritten madcap characters, including club owner Barbara (with bird cage hair and an unplaceable accent), blow-up sex doll colleagues and (porn) agent Gary Pasquale, Mosinski’s search for fame fails and falls flat. Sadly even the campy gags aimed at hun culture-pilled gals, gays and theys, aren’t strong enough to balance the reality we see the artist live through.
Where Mosinski does shine though, is in her interaction with the audience. You can see her eyes light up as she plays with the crowd, but it’s short-lived as she is bound to her overlong, narrative-heavy script.
What could have been a smart critique of lad/ladette culture in the late 90s-early 00s instead feels like a bleak retelling of a troubled time for Mosinski with little levity for the audience, despite best efforts.
Selina Mosinski: Puss in Boots – A Working Class Fairy Tale, Pleasance Dome, until 30 Aug (not 19), 9.30pm