I took part in the Edinburgh Fringe 2015 with my own poetry comedy show:
The whole show was a monologue of Her Imperial Highness, Her Grace, Her Excellency, Her Royal Majesty the Queen of Hearts – 'Alice in Wonderland’ character – and consisted of poems, songs and the Queen’s delirium in prose between them. My Queen of Hearts wore red lipstick and was totally obsessed with power, money and sex :-)
The show covered a wide range of topics. Among them were common stereotypes, complexes and fears, relations between men and women, sex, politics and even environmental protection! In order to achieve greater contrast, I united my poetry with classical music and chose a gothic church as the venue.
The BBC attended my show and reviewed it as ‘spectacular and with a hint of scandal’, ‘humour not for everybody’, ‘unusual and different from the traditional stand-up comedians’ and ‘understandable even outside of Russian culture’ at the same time. However, life is not always plain sailing – they wrote their review in Russian:
Read
However, happy days! I’ve translated the article. The translation of the review into English can be downloaded here
ROYAL DECREE (final poem for the show)
Now listen to one’s royal decree.
Which one has written for your good.
Now everybody’s pleas
Should be heard out and understood.
Hangovers should recover strength
And smoking should prolong a life.
Please keep all plain girls at arm’s length
As Kelly Brook should be your wife.
You should be never bound to work.
Instead, you should play the guitar.
And every humble office clerk
Should be a YouTube super-star.
All politicians should be fair.
All blondes should understand sarcasm.
Girls should not wear underwear.
Men should have multiple orgasms.
One knows one’s asking for a change.
But you are strong enough, my dear.
Please find it easy to arrange.
Don’t make one learn Chinese next year.
Some people say that one is mad.
But just because one is crowned
One doesn’t think that it’s too bad
To dream and change the world around.
It’s such a sentimental thing
But one believes in it by far.
That every person is as big
As their heart and spirit are.
One’s sure happiness is close.
Our sorrows will just fade away.
There’ll be no villains, cheats and foes.
Small guys will grow up one day.
The world is such a perfect place.
It’s full of miracles and joy.
It shows its kindness and its grace
To every adult, girl and boy.
Of course, there are some bastards too.
But there’s no need to call the guards.
They can’t do any harm to you.
As they are just a pack of cards!