The ‘navvies’ of Chalk Farm: fist fights, rowdy pubs and raffling a dead body
August 29, 2024
Life was dangerous, drunken and relentlessly tough for the men who transformed the neighbourhood carving out the railways
Growing up is challenging. It’s also devilishly exciting – and crushingly disappointing at times – amidst all the angst and confusion, too. American-born actor/playwright, Celeste Cahn, deftly manages to evoke the white heat of her sexual awakening, alongside the dawning frustration that fairytale endings are not all their cracked up to be.
Her boldly autobiographical one-woman show, A Lady Does Not Scratch Her Crotch, showing this weekend at Camden Fringe, reveals her Disney-obsessed six-year-old self enthusiastically discovering the various, often baffling rules of becoming a fully-grown lady.
The monologue flits between deeply personal and comic storytelling, with skits of wild animated creativity from the recesses of her younger mind, enlisting the help of various characters from Beauty and the Beast to drum home the learning of questionable social mores.
While the Beast elements are in danger of getting a little lost on those who haven’t brushed up on their Disney classics of late, it’s the flip over to breathless pre-teen Celeste that keeps the show rollicking forwards. Her furtive delivery of each new revelation or outrage, always presented with boundless energy, is a delight.
As early admonishments for masturbatory infringements make way for the discovery of toxic masculinity and terrible shags, the joyful rawness of the play never darkens. It is an accomplishment to step into the awkwardly taboo territory of burgeoning pre-teen sexuality and still make it all feel like a charming Disney caper.
There’s a lot of physicality in the show, culminating in the lecherous Gaston depicted as a smiley face scrawled on Celeste’s arm, which she then proceeds to snog into smeared lipstick oblivion. But despite more lessons learned from another romantic disappointment with a fragile male ego, there’s still no descent into trauma in this tale – beyond the squirming of the audience.
And right on cue comes the participatory moment of the show, where each night a member of said audience is invited to kiss the star up on stage – then rate her technique. Yes, from teeth to tongue, body to breath, graded on a scale of A-F. This horror assuredly brings back everyone’s own memories of early fumblings and insecurities flooding back. It’s an assured way to end, from a performer who – unlike her curious 12-year-old self – is fully confident of who she is and where she’s going.
After the show, I ask Celeste what she thinks her pre-teen self would make of her now, loudly exploring her early lusts and crushes on the London stage. “Mostly, she would think it was cool,” she says. “I was already into theatre then, so I think to know I was doing this would be exciting, if a bit surprising, for me at that age, particularly that I hs written a play. In terms of the personal nature of it, I think it would excite her. I think she would find the kissing moment shocking, but honestly, I think she would think it was cool I was getting to kiss a bunch of people, if a bit weird to be graded on it, and do it so publicly. I don’t know that she would agree with my interpretation of all the events though – except the period monologue. That is very much how I felt at age 12!”
A Lady Does Not Scratch Her Crotch is at The Hen & Chickens Theatre Saturday 17th and Sun 18th August 2024. More info and tickets here.
Life was dangerous, drunken and relentlessly tough for the men who transformed the neighbourhood carving out the railways
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