Churchill’s Urinal
In the age of 24-hour news and political car crash after political car crash, stories that once would have dogged politicians lack the staying power they once did. Like, who even remembers when Rachel Reeves, newly appointed as the UK’s first female chancellor, insisted that she was going to get rid of the urinal in No 11 as a defiant act of girl power, only to find out that she couldn’t as the latrine had been used by Winston Churchill and therefore was of historical significance? Rosie Holt, that’s who.
A political comedian best known for parodying MPs on social media, Holt has taken that story and run with it. The product is Churchill’s Urinal, an extended monologue directed by Holt’s long-time collaborator Daniel Clarkson that is part-stand up show, part play. She imagines a world where Reeves – or a totally different, unnamed first British female chancellor, as Holt cheekily clarifies in a pre-show announcement – was so obsessed with getting rid of the urinal and the legacy of problematic powerful men it represented that she was willing to stake her entire career on it. ‘I’m not a man. I’m a successful lady and I want a successful lady’s toilet,’ she declares.
The premise is ripe for comic potential, whether in reference to the impossible standards female left-wing politicians are held to or the endless bureaucracy that prevents any progress within parliament. Under Clarkson’s direction, moments emerge in which Holt capitalises on the humour baked into the scenario....