Sarah Kendall: Get Up, Stand Up

From the moment Sarah Kendall steps on stage she owns the sold-out venue, and after a great opening gambit she gets into the flow really quickly.  The main theme revolves around her daughter and what society has in store for her, but there’s far more to this as she brings in many other situations, offering comical but strong opinions while never ramming them down our throats. Perfect timing from her intelligent material results in peals of laughter. Her use of a dirty bassline thumping overhead as she turns the tables on the misogyny of hip hop adds an extra energy to the show, and the close, with a single spotlight on her as she reads aloud, is a pleasure to watch.

There are some subjects which may have been touched on before – travelling with kids, sexist remarks in the street – but Kendall does bring a fresh look at them, never touching on cliché, and it keeps the audience interest up. Her self-deprecating manner when she tells us her tales is at odds with her impressive stage presence, but the balance is struck just right, and the hour does disappear.