BROWN GIRLS DO IT TOO: MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME | London, Soho Theatre

Is it cabaret? Live podcast? Comedy? Taking the award-winning BBC Sounds podcast as its starting point, the live show by duo Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani switches between faux-spontaneous conversation and skits – much like the podcast.

Three seasons of talking about everything – from fisting to labiaplasty – has made them both confident and charismatic performers. Whether playing judgemental aunties flicking through ‘Samosa Soulmates’, or impersonating the men who troll them, the two deliver on their trademark sense of dirty fun.

The production design (Rosanna Vize) is marvellous: a parody-perfect, early-2000s’ girl’s bedroom, complete with Destiny’s Child posters, pink inflatable chair, and lava lamp, also littered with saris and BDSM gear.

In between the silliness, there’s time to broach some difficult topics: there is discussion of the South-Asian community’s relationship to blackness; allyship (and the lack thereof) among ‘brown boys’; as well as homophobia and colourism within the community. But the tricky stuff is not always allowed space to breathe, and is sometimes just dismissed with a breezy, ‘we could write another show about that’.

If you’re looking for a serious meditation on sex and race, the show will be only occasionally satisfying. But if a dildo named Trevor, corner-shop-owner roleplay and simulated masturbation on a space-hopper sound like your idea of a good night out, then Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not To Come will leave you begging for more.

Playing at the Soho Theatre 18 – 22 October, 2022.

The Prickle - About transp