My second time seeing Gwyneth Goes Skiing, I wasn’t expecting it to get better. I saw the show for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, and sure, I liked it enough. Enough to see it twice? Sounds like more than enough. But while I liked it the first time, the second time was something else.
Gwenyth Goes Skiing is, in many ways, the show to see more than once. Heavy use of audience participation injects an element of spontaneity into the show. While you might expect a fringe crowd to be more comfortable with this, Gwyneth’s Oxford audience (made of a mix of students and couples I would guess are post-60) took full advantage. I wouldn’t normally recommend heckling performers (and you still shouldn’t), but one of the biggest laughs of the night came from this kind of moment. Linus Karp and Joseph Martin seemed only to delight in this mess. When Karp (Gwyneth Paltrow) got her heel stuck in a vent, the accident only lent itself to the perfect (snow)storm that was Gwyneth Goes Skiing. Similarly, one poor front-row man left his wine on the edge of the stage in the interval. Martin wasted no time in scooping it up and downing it mid-trial. Karp and Martin were experts at dealing with these kinds of accidents, and experts at making the audience comfortable enough to laugh at them too. We were in safe hands – if sticky ones.
Gwenyth Goes Skiing is a half-musical parody of the real-life trial between Gwyneth Paltrow and Terry Sanderson – a name the show will tell you repeatedly, and yet always expect you to forget. I have already said the best parts of the show came from its spontaneity. This came to the forefront in the changes that they made since my last watch in August. Setting the show’s final monologue to the intro of Chappel Roan’s ‘Pink Pony Club’ was exactly the kind of niche, chronically-online piece of humour that had me cackling. I can’t say with confidence what else was new and what was not, but the fact that lots of the play felt fresh, despite my second viewing, was a testament to the writing.
Here, however, come my few critiques. The show’s niche internet humour just didn’t always land with the audience. Gwyneth not knowing that she was in Spiderman was a joke made repeatedly throughout the show: it didn’t ever work. Either people didn’t get the reference, or they just weren’t finding it funny. Continual reference to the audience as ‘Shes, Gays and Theys’ also failed to find the funny, looking around at several (at least, in my opinion) visibly straight, elderly couples. When every moment is a joke, however, the moments that don’t work hardly detract from the overall experience.
While some jokes grew more painful with their repetition, many jokes grew only funnier. Punning off the name ‘Gwyneth’ with ‘gwitness’, ‘qwinnocent’, ‘qwoke’ and even ‘that’s that gwe espresso’ got more laughs each time. Before the play, and in the interval, parodies of pop songs became increasingly hilarious with each addition, riffing of Kesha’s ‘Joy Ride’ with ‘Ski Ride’, Beyonce with ‘Who Run the World – Goop’ and Gaga with ‘Don’t call my name… Gwyneth Paltrow’. Generally, Gwyneth Goes Skiing knew just when to hit you with the same joke again, and when to freshen it up.
Gwyneth Goes Skiing may have finished its time in Oxford, but Awkward Prods are currently touring it around the UK. Look for it in your hometown! It’s worth the watch.