The C Word - August 17th - 19th 2007,Etcetera Theatre, Camden Fringe Festival

 

"Emma Hart's one-woman show is her own inimitable take on the C-Word, Cancer. From the sugar-coated "Cancer pills" her audience is forced to eat as they enter, to the "C-Word" brand stamped on our wrists, Hart's account, based on her own brush with the disease, is in-yer-face, honest, yet amazingly upbeat.

 

This is no sacharine, whimsy tale of "how I got through it",

but a veritable triumph of guts over statistics. Hart pulls no punches when it comes to the harsh truths of diagnosis and treatment, nor is she afraid to show her weaker moments, but the entire piece is shot through with enough wicked humour - from sly one-liners to fantasy sequences involving Big Bugger tasks for cancer-sufferers - to scare even cancer into submission.

"As a performer, Hart is vibrant, enthused and extremely likeable. This piece could - and should - go far." 

Review by Louise Hill, British Theatre Guide

 

The play moves into the world of likeable Zoe. It's easy to shudder with her... and laugh secretly alongside her. Emma Hart cleverly juxtaposes the harsh reality of Zoe's choices and treatment with popular icons of today.

 

The moments where Zoe removes the brave comic face she wears to consider the shitty path fate has sent are performed sensitively and delicately by Emma Hart. The C Word is, unashamedly, a chick lit novel on stage. It's easy to empathise with the clumsy, quirky heroine attempting to battle cancer

Review by Jemma Gross, Fringe Report

 

"Emma Hart’s The C Word humorously and poignantly focuses on one woman’s experience of having cancer, based on Emma’s own brush with the disease." Review by My Cultural Life, London