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Sarah Kendall
- Hay Festival
- Hay-On-Wye
- 26th May 2007
Sweet nothings may soothe over-heated literary brains, but don't make good comedy
45 seconds. That’s how long it takes Sarah Kendall to point out that a) she’s an Australian, b) this isn’t Australia, this is England and c) ho ho ho aren’t they different and isn’t she a fish out of antipodean waters? It’s material based on topics as obvious as the rain hammering down on the canvas above our heads. Let’s just say that if the beer at the Hay Festival was as cheap as some of Kendall’s jokes SSP would have enjoyed her set a whole lot more.
Festival line-ups are all about balance and it’s easy to see why Kendall made the bill. Her jape-by-numbers routine offers a soothing brain balm to an audience exhausted from the day’s programme of political debate and literary sparring. However, for those of us too stupid to even feign an interest in the ‘meat’ of the festival, her patter is so much candy floss – sticky, sweet and as light as air.
There is one fantastic moment when someone in the audience gets up to go to the loo. Kendall does the obligatory "don’t go, it’ll get better" bit until the loo-leaver gets to the door, then she hisses "Aren’t we glad she’s gone? I couldn’t believe she came, can you?" It’s both spiteful and conspiratory and for a fleeting moment we join the intelligentsia in roaring along to her observational wit.
For rest of the time we’re plagued by the feeling that this is one of the rare occasions at Hay that SSP will be the authority on something. And we’re supremely confident in our knowledge that, despite what these fiercely intelligent people may think, Sarah Kendall is just no good.
Henry Barnes
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