Sweet Pang! review: the story of a fictional sex-worker via song and pole-dancing | Tiger Dublin Fringe

Sweet Pang!
The Chocolate Factory
***

There is a pole-dancing radical feminist zombie. There is a song with the refrain “let me lead you into my thighs”.

And there is the 4ft 10in, blonde, blue-eyed, muscly Lady Grew, whose profile on Escorts Ireland she invites you to look up while treating you to a fleeting full frontal.

These are some of things one should know before heading into Sweet Pang!, a "cabarave" that tackles the "boudoir war" via song and pole-dancing.

Never has the debate around the legalisation of prostitution in Ireland been laid out in such an unusually entertaining manner.

The small but mainly mighty Katie Grew is a known activist, escort, and performer, vocal in her support for the legalisation of prostitution. Her point’s well made when she sings, “If I can’t sell sex freely I’m enslaved”, while wearing a long blue wig, plastic corset, and sequin hot pants.

Brash and bolshie, Sweet Pang! takes you through a series of songs set to dodgy backing tracks, through which Lady Grew tells the story of a fictional sex-worker while relaying her own personal tale: "I'm bursting with joie de vivre, they want to treat me like a piece of meat."

At times the show’s stage craft lets it down badly, with unnecessary and hesitant actions on stage resulting in moments of clunkiness.

What’s more, the DIY hub that is the Chocolate Factory makes for a strange location for a show that would’ve benefited from glossy finishes and disco balls.

But no doubt Lady Grew will continue to conquer her audience “trick after trick after trick”, as she would say. Until Sept 17