Horndog

Rose Matafeo begins this hour by redefining the word horniness as a kind of frantic, all-consuming passion that teenage girls direct at things like K-pop, crochet, and Franz Ferdinand. She is on stage with the physical energy of a cartoon character, bouncing around, making weird eye contact, and presenting a slide show featuring 2003-era WordArt on a millennial-pink background. It is a defense of obsessive devotion that treats the goofy preoccupations of youth not as embarrassing mistakes, but as the peak of human passion.\n\nThe show was taped in January 2020 at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End and released shortly before Matafeo’s sitcom, Starstruck, made her a major name in international comedy. The hour itself is a polished version of the live set that won the Best Show award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018. It features her late introduction to masturbation, the mild despair of being a heterosexual woman, and her childhood spent in Neopets forums. She punctuates her confessions with a choreographed dance number that feels completely earned.