There’s something that feels fairly wrong about reviewing a work-in-progress show by someone who is the same age as you, in a field you’re not the most knowledgeable in. Theatre is a genre I feel like I can navigate fairly well. Comedy is a genre I am fairly new to, particularly when reviewing. So, Ania, if you read this (which you inevitably will; the internet is a small place), forgive me?
Ania Magliano’s comic style is dry, witty, and full of millennial anecdotes. Knowing that many will focus on her age, she capitalises on it, consistently making jokes that she’s young, and “doesn’t remember the big bang!”. The recurring joke sets the tone for the evening: Magliano is solemn, slightly sarcastic, and certainly knows how to control a crowd.
Magliano takes us through the stages of growing up, weaving sweeping statements (“my parents divorce messed me up”) with long form jokes. One of the funniest is when she talks about how she wants her funeral to go down: open-casket, banging Facebook event (“nobody can say ‘maybe’ to a funeral”). She even wonders if her stepmother would cry, directing it right at the woman herself, sat in the front row giggling. Magliano is forthright and no-holds barred. She’s happy to move swiftly from boy band talk to the levels of vibrators, with a bit of young Stalin thrown in for good measure. She tells it like it is.
It’s clear from both her thriving social media and the reception from the audience that she’s garenerd a strong millennial fanbase, and she handles audience interaction as if she’s been doing it for years. She’s honest about fluffing a segment, or sneakily calling out when someone’s phone is on. And the audience are most definitely on her side.
In short, LASANIA (Work in Progress) is a great hour of comedy from an emerging stand-up. Witty, droll, and capturing the millennial experience, Ania Magliano is certainly one to watch.
The Mortal Fool 