Clementine Bogg-Hargroves | Bouquets & Brickbats

08/08/23

Pleasance Dome (Ace), Edinburgh

We last saw Clementine Bogg-Hargroves in Skank, a self-penned one-woman show, which was a bright spot in 2021’s weird semi-Fringe, even though it was largely about smear tests.

This year’s offering is, if anything, even more up close and personal; certainly it’s more literally in-your-face. We’re in the front row, only a few feet away from the small stage, where there’s no shying away from Bogg-Hargroves’ intense, pleading gaze. Or her pole-dancing.

Please Love Me is, as the title suggests, all about need – specifically the need for love and validation. It’s also about the nature of choice, about how the decisions we make are actually part of our conditioning. “Please love me,” Clem asks again and again. By the end of the hour, we kind of do.

In this deeply personal coming-of-age story (it’s “almost all, sort of, maybe true”), Bogg-Hargroves revisits her teenage years and her burgeoning sexuality. It’s all here: the funny stuff, the silly stuff, the friendships, trauma and heartbreak. Okay, so maybe we haven’t all done a stint as a stripper or fallen pregnant at nineteen, but I think the emotional landscape will be recognisable to most women; it isn’t hard to empathise.

Bogg-Hargroves is a disarming performer, and she’s ably supported by co-writer and director Zoey Barnes. Indeed, I’d like to see Barnes doing more; she has a likeable stage presence, and works well as a steady foil to Clem’s heightened emotions. The set is simple – a pole and some scaffolding – and, along with the costumes, cleverly contrives to create the visual impact of a strip club without the titillation.

Please Love Me is an engaging and disarmingly frank piece of theatre that raises as many questions as it answers.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

18/08/21

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

Skank is a surprise. I’m expecting a wry look at Millennial life, and – to some extent – that’s what I get. Clementine Bogg-Hargroves plays Kate, a young woman flitting from one temping job to the next, dreaming of being a writer but hardly ever actually writing anything. She won’t commit to a ‘proper’ job because the thought of it fills her with dread. She has nothing in common with her colleagues, but they seem to like her: she’s funny and sparky, and even has a crush on one of them. But Kate’s real life happens outside the office: in trendy coffee shops and pubs; in too much booze and one-night-stands; in knitting classes and doctor’s appointments.

Ah yes. Doctor’s appointments. Because this isn’t, it turns out, as light as it first seems. It’s a clever realisation of how people conceal their mental health problems. No one in the office can possibly have a clue about how anxious Kate is, all the time, of what her upbeat humour hides. As the play progresses, we see Kate unravel, all the while maintaining that same bubbly persona.

A smear test is the catalyst. An abnormality sends Kate spiralling, her tinnitus is out of control and she doesn’t know what to do. And why is it so bloody hard to recycle a baked beans tin around here?

Bogg-Hargroves truly inhabits the part, which makes sense, as it’s based on her own experience. She’s a charming, engaging performer, easily eliciting laughs from this afternoon’s audience. I cry too, because there is real heart here, and plenty of stuff that resonates. If at times it’s a little too close to home, a little difficult to bear, well, that’s the point, I think. That’s art, doing what art is meant to do.

There’s some lovely direction here (from Bogg-Hargroves and Zoey Barnes). The transformation of Kate’s desk into an examination table is simple and wonderfully offbeat, drawing a laugh all by itself. I like the little bit of puppetry too, and the pre-recorded offstage voices (sound tech by George Roberts) are a quirky and effective touch. (I do wonder, however, why the final voice is different from all the others; apart from this one, they’re all Bogg-Hargroves, who has an impressive range of accents and tones. Is this meant to signify something? If so, I don’t get it.)

Incidentally, the Pleasance Rear Courtyard is my favourite performance space so far this Fringe – the best example of a joyous outside/inside Covid-safe venue I’ve seen. And Skank is a delight too. Make time to see this. It’s a gem.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield