Wench
YouTube · 2024 · 65 min
Coming out in midlife and moving in with two judgmental cats.
Released , on YouTube.
Jessica Fostekew planned to spend her late thirties running wild. Having ended a nine-year relationship with a man and realized she was gay, she picked a title meant to signal a phase of reckless promiscuity. Instead, she fell straight into domestic devotion, moving in with a new girlfriend, her young son, and two hostile cats.
Recorded at the Factory Theatre inside Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatres and directed by Stuart Laws, the special arrived as the follow-up to Hench, her Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated show about gym culture and gendered body scrutiny. Where that set had the tight architecture of an essay, this one trades political point-scoring for domestic mess.
Her physical delivery does heavy lifting. Fostekew interrupts her own confessional stories with sudden barks and squawks, polling the crowd on modern pubic grooming before delivering a precise impression of a cat radiating quiet disapproval. Other routines pick through age gaps with her Gen Z sister and her awkward attempts to understand shifting identity vocabulary while newly out.
The stage run sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe before touring the UK, though reviewers noted it was a looser, more relaxed hour than the relentlessly focused material that made her name.
Notable bits & set list
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Playing Wordle daily and the New York Times cancelling words including 'Wench'
Explaining that 'wench' isn't offensive to her, but rather one of her favourite nicknames for her son
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The indignity of getting an intimate wax
Exquisite physical comedy and expressive facial dramatics exploring the dwindling empowerment quota of modern grooming expectations
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The closer (spoiler). Show it
Being asked intrusive questions by friends about bedroom logistics after coming out later in life
Spins out a wild fantasy answering the question of what queer sex looks like, mocking inquisitors' half-arsed preconceptions
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Feminist boundaries between a 'bimbo' and a 'wench'
Interrogating modern feminism, plastic surgery, and body maintenance to see where she lands between the two concepts
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Online dating and blending a family with her new female partner
Navigating modern dating challenges, bringing together her young son and her partner's cats
How it plays
- Tone
- Nuanced, candid, silly, cathartic, and mirthful
- On stage
- Self-deprecating, remarkably open, engaging, moving between anger, silliness, and warmth with astonishingly mobile and precise facial expressions
- Pace
- Frenetic energy, fast-paced and speedy delivery that never flags
- About
- sexuality and coming out in middle age, queer motherhood and blended families, feminism, femininity, and shifting standards, the reclamation of 'bimbo' versus 'wench', promiscuity, privilege, and pubes, post-pandemic social awkwardness and small talk
What the critics said
Praised as a nuanced, vivid, and energetic follow-up to 'Hench' that mined rich comedy from her mid-life sexual awakening, though some reviewers noted it was looser and covered a wide range of territory less cohesively than its predecessor
In the room: A late-afternoon room that took a few minutes to warm up before being completely won over, erupting in laughter as the silliness intensified
Backstory
Mid-life metamorphosis following a split from a 10-year relationship (the father of her son), coming out and embracing her sexuality as a queer mother in her late 30s, entering a same-sex relationship, and managing post-pandemic social awkwardness
Details
- Released
- Runtime
- 65 min
- Where
- YouTube
- Director
- Stuart Laws
- Topics
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