Adelaide Fringe

Big Shoes to Fill: An Exposé of a 50ft Woman – Adelaide Fringe 2011

Presented by Anna Lumb
Reviewed Monday 28 February 2011

http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au
http://www.gardenofunearthlydelights.com.au
http://www.annalumb.com

Venue: The Bally @ Gluttony, cnr of East Tce & Grenfell St, Adelaide
Season: 1-6 Mar at 8.30pm
Tickets: $20.00/$16.00 Cheap Tuesdays: $16.00
Duration: 45 mins
Bookings: FringeTix 1300 FRINGE (374 643) or http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au

A fifty foot woman is a lot of woman! She enters from behind, tall and mean and magnificent, emerging through a sea of fog to the miniature city on stage where a retro rhythm cues the 1950s schlock opening titles.

This a feisty doll who never grew up, a woman without friends who can’t even find an apartment to rent. She seeks our approval but her isolation has stilted her maturity. She’s a big kid with a fetish for shoes.

Anna “Pocket Rocket” Lumb provides a comical insight into someone who just wants to fit in. She’s searched the country for big things and has a slide show to prove it, finding solace in Queensland’s Big Pineapple, Tamworth’s Big Golden Guitar, and the Big Lobster in Kingston, to name but a few.

That’s not enough, though, so cutesy has become her shtick as she roller skates, hula-hoop, attempts to seduce, and dances to impress. Watching her make and eat breakfast as she spins a hula-hoop on one arm is a highlight of this darkly crazy show.

Sadly sound cues were often late on opening night, but ironically that added to the charm of it all, allowing Lumb to play up to it with a look or a wink. She changes shoes for each ‘act’ which sometimes slows down proceedings but she’s quick with a throw away line to fill in the pauses.

She’s silly, irreverent, needy and nerdy but she wins you over the moment she’s on stage. Her ultimate approval comes however in the impressive finale when the loud applause tells her she’s finally received the love she deserves.

Reviewed by Rod Lewis, Performing Arts Critic, Glam Adelaide.

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