This attack on theatre critics falls squarely on its bottom – Wild Bore, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, review

Three female comedians are bent over, their naked bottoms perched on the ledge of a trestle table. When they speak, they jiggle their bottoms to intimate the movement of lips: we are, quite literally, watching them talk out of their arses.

At this point, some context might be useful. Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott have decided to hit back at the critics – or more specifically, the ones who aren’t always very nice – by performing a show made up largely of them sh--ting out direct quotations from disparaging theatre reviews. Clever, eh?

A recurring joke in the show, which was first performed in Melbourne earlier this year, is that critics too often write that something happened on stage “for no apparent reason”. “You may as well have written, ‘for no apparent reason, Hamlet holds the skull of Yorick in his hands’,” says Martinez, attempting to highlight the absurdity of the statement. “Have a f---ing think about it, arse-wipe.”

Fine, but the problem is that, however carefully written and thoroughly rehearsed a scene or a line may be, if its purpose remains unclear, that is arguably a failure on the part of the performer, not the viewer. How arrogant do you have to be to dismiss criticism by saying, ‘Oh, you just didn’t get it.’?

Added to this, for all the edginess of the production, with its nudity and sparse set, the method of getting laughs – self-deprecation (most of the reviews read out attack the performers' own previous productions) – is actually wholly conventional. In fact, it's probably an easier laugh than dropping your trousers. 

In a recent interview, Coombs Marr, who was nominated for the main award at the Fringe last year, said: “Critics are part of a world which has patriarchal structures and patriarchal language.” This is true, and there is undoubtedly value to be had in questioning the validity of a review written by a white, male critic of a show aimed at a different demographic or, indeed, challenging that patriarchal structure.

How disappointing, then, that so little effort is expended addressing that problem. There is a brief, if interesting, aside about the gap between what is actually happening on stage and what the male gaze sees happening on stage. But otherwise, the topic is skated over with surprising haste.

I might appear to be laying myself open to the accusation that I didn’t like Wild Bore because it was rude about my profession – oh, and because I'm a white male, too. But actually the strangest thing of all is just how flattering it turns out to be for a critic. The trio are totally seduced by the words, however rude, of their reviewers, and delight in quoting them – just as much as the audience delights in hearing them.

What a sad irony that the best lines of this show weren’t even written by the performers.

Wild Bore is at the Traverse Theatre until Aug 27; tickets: traverse.co.uk