Katie Brennan’s Quarter-Life Crisis: a whinge set to music
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Touted as a ‘big, warm musical hug’ for cast-adrift twentysomethings, comedy-cabaret night Katie Brennan’s Quarter-Life Crisis is more like a millennial whinge set to music. It’s a roll-call of Generation Y clichés. There are songs about student debt, the housing crisis, Buzzfeed and Tinder dates, with some nostalgic 90s covers thrown in for good measure. The tunes are well crafted, and Brennan has a belting voice. But the pedestrian yoofy material means you can’t help but wince.
In the end, it’s more earnest than it is self-pitying. Brennan tells burnt out twentysomethings to take time to ‘be cute to yourself’ – in her case, this means curling up with a battered copy of Harry Potter. There’s an entire song about how lovely her mates are. And another about battling the ‘anxiety goblin’. An hour of a Gen Y angst-lite would be bad enough, but there’s something strangely PG-13 about it all – notwithstanding the odd Tinder-date jizz gag. Swipe left.
Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_
Katie Brennan’s Quarter-Life Crisis is at Underbelly George Square until 29 August.
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