Closure at a Self-Serve Checkout feels like a staple for the Adelaide Fringe being a comedy-cabaret from an up-and-coming artist who moved to South Australia after falling in love with our arts scene. It’s a show that revolves around Bobbie Viney baring her heart to the masses with a vulnerability that is saturated with humour.
With her unique voice and hilarious and moving lyricism, Bobbie puts on a fun and relatable show by venting her feelings over her past relationship with a moustached hipster with no bed-frame.
Her quirky original songs and stand-up monologues move the audience through the different stages of a breakup. From the initial feelings of jealousy and loss, the anger at the lack of closure, and reminiscing over the past.
Bobbie utilises her acting background to showcase her unique and hilarious perspective of the world, with each spoken word demonstrating her talent in writing from the heart. With her comical songs like “Post-Coital Compliments” leaving you in stitches, she also veers through feminist tangents, complains about Gemini’s, and wonder’s if moustaches are all you need to fix emotional upheaval.
A highlight of the show is her heart-tugging poem, which brought some audience members to tears as they empathised with the emotional journey of learning to be with yourself again after heartbreak.
Bobbie also provides a fun PowerPoint presentation to keep the audience informed of the show’s progression and uses it to share entertaining definitions of terms like ‘ghosting’ and ‘fuckboi’ for those who are unaware. She also adds some amusing graphs and image collages to move her story forwards.
You can tell Bobbie is stepping out of her comfort zone to present her own work on stage for the first time, and she performs admirably, with her passion for the arts shining through her entire show. She did have a few nervous hiccups during her opening night, but she powered through confidently and didn’t let them detract from her overall performance.
As her show progresses, I would love to see Bobbie gain more confidence in her power over the audience, as she tends to wait for laughter to subside completely before singing the next lyric, rather than encouraging silence by continuing on her own terms.
She’ll be parked at The Howling Owl for the majority of her show’s run, in a cosy room upstairs with the nearby bar filled with a range of gins to choose from. Bobbie is also doing a short regional tour into Murray Bridge, at the Bridgeport Hotel, in early March, with ‘a meal and a show’ ticket options. Both locations have limited seats, so if you’re in the area grab your tickets quick before they’re sold out!
If you want to laugh, cry, sing along to a silly song, and commiserate over bad breakups this Fringe, look no further than Bobbie Viney’s debut Fringe show, Closure at a Self-Serve Checkout.