Thalia Joan - That’ll Do: The Glamour Of Giving Up

Thalia Joan bursts into the room with a megaphone, in a clinging, glamorous evening dress and comfy shoes and launches into her self-deprecating, ironic, carefully observed, and utterly relatable 45 minutes of sharing about her life. While many topics are touched on, growing up with a mother and grandmother, work and issues with a boss, ex-boyfriends and the differences in generations; the core of the show is her response to an internet quiz the algorithm sent her to identify whether she is giving up.

There are many beautifully crafted, pithy lines which provoke the audience into laugh out loud enjoyment. She works with the audience and gives some of them a bit more attention than they might have wanted, but always with support and good grace. She paces the show expertly and throws in a poem and a song at just the right moments.

Thalia Joan’s material, while all about her, maintains humility and self-awareness and playfully invites the audience into her world. The material is clearly well worked and tested but it is fresh and lively and the ad lib interactions with the audience reveal a deft ability to improvise.

The ending leaves the audience on a high note and with the hope that the one thing Thalia Joan does not give up is performance because she delivers on the comic promise of being really funny.

Ruth Richter