This is part of a series of shorter reviews from Edinburgh Fringe, August 2024.
Picture the scene. Friday morning at the Edinburgh Fringe, you force your sister into seeing a compilation of all of Shakespeare’s plays. In return, she forces you to see a compilation of chick flick spoofs. So it came to pass that we went to see “Six Chick Flicks”, or to give it its alternate title “A legally blonde pretty woman dirty dancing on the beaches while writing a notebook on the Titanic”. The sketch show was performed by US comedians Kerry Ipema and KK Apple.
Both actresses stress that men can watch chick flicks too (despite the audience being roughly 95% female), and I don’t doubt that they can – it must have just been mere coincidence that I had not seen any of the films that they spoofed. I at least had a working notion of Titanic and Legally Blonde though, so that gave me a bit of a head start.
The comedy is very good, and was clearly enjoyed by the other audience members who had seen the films – although a spoof of the film “Beaches” was met with a general “huh?” from most of the audience, clearly being a less popular choice. Running jokes such as the Titanic having very big doors (big enough for two people to fit on if they were to be floating in the ocean, for instance) and sex scenes being skipped over with a quick blackout got funnier as the show went on, and the actresses gave extremely melodramatic interpretations of the films’ lead actors.
The show has feminist undertones, with Ipema and Apple pointing out the ridiculous nature of some of these films, only to follow it up with the obvious reason for this: “the film was written by a man”. Towards the end, both actors drop the comic act for a while to make some very important points about abortion rights in the US, after reaching the abortion scene from Dirty Dancing. This is a sobering moment surrounded by absurd comedy, which makes it stand out even more, and will leave audience members with something to think about on the walk home after.
The show also contained an improv segment which saw Ipema and Apple take a suggestion of a seventh chick flick from the audience and bring that to life. For the show that we saw, “Bridget Jones’ Diary” was picked (another film I haven’t seen!) and the improv proved to be one of the funniest moments of the night.
Overall, a comedy that sadly I could not fully appreciate due to lack of knowledge of the pre-requisite material but was nonetheless entertaining. And at least my sister was happy.
Tom Morley, August 2024
“Six Chick Flicks” plays at Underbelly Bristo Square – Cowshed at 9:30pm until 25th August.
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