Guest review by Emma Maguire

We are wel­comed into the BATS Stu­dio by a woman dressed in a black cloak. Illu­min­ated by the light of flick­er­ing (elec­tric) candles, we’re bap­tised by water poured from a men­stru­al cup, and we recite the single person’s pray­er.

All the single ladies… now put your hands up!

Donna Brook­banks’ show You Do You Babes is an embra­cing of single­hood, of wine, and of many, many cats. It is a very like­able show, where strange pop cul­ture vign­ettes break up the pat­ter of more tra­di­tion­al stand-up.

Through­out the show, we’re treated to an inter­est­ing tour of Donna’s house in the style of MTV’s Cribs – in which the hor­rors of liv­ing in a tiny home with a stub­born cat are fully explored.

We even get to play the part of some people from her past as we mock her in a Com­edy Cent­ral-esque Roast. This author, in par­tic­u­lar, was pulled from the audi­ence to read the words of Donna’s ‘eighty-year old bal­let teach­er’, who really didn’t have nice to say about her.   

There’s also a TED talk (which really just boils down to talk­ing about cats), many moments of pants­less­ness, and a good ten minutes at the end of the show where pro­ceed­ings are con­duc­ted with grated cheese cov­er­ing the stage. It is cer­tainly an exper­i­ence of a piece, that’s for sure.  

While we do not truly get to the root cause of all single­hood, we are encour­aged to stop try­ing on the pants that might not quite fit us in life, and wear the dresses we feel good in – amongst the grated cheese, the awk­ward­ness, and all the oth­er shit that’s in between.

You do you, babes, indeed.

You Do You Babes is run­ning at BATS Theatre in Wel­ling­ton from 8.30pm every night until the 12th of May. Tick­ets are avail­able from the BATS web­site. Get amongst!