If you stumbled across Betty Grumble’s Edinburgh Fringe show unawares, drawn in by an eye-catching poster and Melbourne Comedy Festival’s rave reviews, you would be forgiven for hating every second of it.
Just as it seemed, a group of women was sitting next to me in the audience.
‘Did you know she was going to do all this?’ one of them asked me, with a face full of horror as Emma Maye Gibson was finishing up her show, writhing and sliding around on a wet floor totally naked, having a moment before she shaved her public hair and pretended to eat her own poo (it was not actual faeces, though she did mimic laying it).
Not long into the show, Gibson masturbated on stage in her ‘Grief Cum’ – a way of releasing her past traumas. (Yes, she did actually orgasm on stage, as she told Metro in a pre-Fringe interview.)
Gripping a pink vibrator to her chest, Gibson went for it, moaning and masterbating like she was alone in her bedroom. Apart from a few courtesy side-eyes and clenched smiles shared with my uninitiated neighbour, the room – made up of men and women, mostly young but with some older – watched on without the creepy intensity you may expect.
Some even started shaking their macarenas in vocal support of her climax, as is encouraged by Betty throughout the show.
Audience members were warned of ‘sex scenes’ and ‘joyfully wetter full-frontal nudity’.
But there should have been a stronger trigger warning that we were about to see a sex act on stage. Gibson did tell people they could leave while explaining what she was about to do. But at this stage, being an ‘Enemy of Grooviness’ didn’t seem like an option.
My neighbour said her friend just wanted to go home after seeing this intensely artistic show, having thought they’d signed up for a comedy. But Grumble fans, who knew the wild ride they were in for, were left in awe and raving, as I found out in the toilets after.
Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t is the Australian sex clown’s most recent wild art piece, and it sees her messily, chaotically and in some strange way beautifully put a middle finger up to beauty standards and social norms, while owning and giving thanks to her body, which men have attempted to violently claim over the years.
She talks about the death of a friend, domestic violence and the court systems, which, after her ordeal concluded, ‘Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned.’
It’s heavy stuff. But while some people go to therapy, Gibson releases it all through her art. It leaves her through music; with her voice tuned into a man’s for a thrilling, naked and crazed rendition of Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls. She also finds freedom in poetry, nudity and sex in a way that’s strange – deeply so – but also euphoric.
Betty’s musical assistant Craig – who was utterly poker-faced throughout, wearing Charli XCX sunnies and nipple tape – offered an almost comical contrast to her extravagant frolicking.
Together, they were what I can only describe as lesbian rock n’ roll.
Erring into the spiritual, eco-sexual Betty sees earth as a lover rather than a mother: she lovingly talks of tree roots and composting her grief. That was a little much for my personal tastes, but I totally went with it. This is her hour of soul-pouring with absolutely no regard for what is considered ‘normal’: who am I to tell her this isn’t?
Gibson has an almost hypnotic knack for taking the audience with her into a cult-like mindset of releasing inhibitions. It is admirable, and although her confidence on stage likely couldn’t be dented by an 18-wheeler truck, I think it’s brave.
At one point, the audience were hurried up on their feet to do a ‘boogie with Grumble in the bin’. (The bin being her messy trauma).
Led by Gibson, this moment reminded me of a housewife’s dance fitness video from the 1980s – except she was totally naked and wearing demented The Joker-esque makeup applied by an audience member. So, naturally, we danced.
Mortifying, right? Weirdly… no. I’ve had redder cheeks seeing poorly executed stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe. Betty gives so much of herself that a little jig in a lit-up room with 50 strangers paled in comparison.
All in all, Betty Grumble wasn’t totally my cup of tea. But perhaps that says more about me than it does her.
This sex clown is on the frayed fringes of the Fringe. It’s totally over the top and verges on the pretentious. But hell, it was more interesting, gripping and life-affirming than watching someone stand on stage for an hour talking about that time they missed the bus.
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