Sooz Kempner @ PBH Free Fringe, Globe Bar

Sooz Kempner has a nagging feeling that her life could be better, speculating that if she collects all the Chaos Emeralds she’ll get a 'good ending', rather than end up with Doctor Robotnik constantly mocking her perceived failings.

And so, Kemp narrates her childhood through the prism of Sega’s iconic character Sonic (she hates Mario, revealed as quite the rude prick, along with Damon Albarn and Twitter mansplainers). She does so with a multimedia sentimental voyage taking in various iterations of the show’s eponymous bristly one, straight-to-VHS Disney and the bloody slaughter of cute rabbits in U-rated films (ah, nostalgia).

Her personal barometer of success is Charlotte Dujardin; a woman the same age and from a similar background (i.e. not rich, but somehow having access to horses that dance) who became ‘the most successful British dressage rider in the history of the sport’.

Kempton, meanwhile, focused her energies on playing the Sega Master System.

Skyping her teenage self via said console (those Sega bods really were ahead of the curve) and duetting with her uber-successful alter-ego Sooz Henshaw (they ‘both’ have stirring singing voices), Kempner [That's enough - Ed] is ultimately celebrating the small successes (her parallel parking prowess really is enviable) while conversely taking umbrage when, for example, reviewers misspell her name, which seems to happen a lot. All in, this is a treatise on the complexities of self-perception delivered in the guise of a warm and gently uplifting performance.

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Sooz Kempner: Super Sonic 90s Kid, PBH Free Fringe, Globe Bar, 4-26 Aug (not 15), 1pm, Free

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