Posted in: Pop Culture | Tagged: Garfunkel And Oates, london, Riki Lindhome, soho, Soho Theatre, theatre, west end

Riki Lindhome's Dead Inside Is The Most Life-Affirming Show Of All

Review: Dead Inside by Riki Lindhome, of Garfunkel And Oates, currently on stage at the Soho Theatre in London, is a most life-affirming show

Riki Lindhome is currently on stage in London's West End at the Soho Theatre on Dean Street, with her show Dead Inside making its London premiere. But don't expect a two-thousand-strong audience; the room can fit fewer than a hundred, including those standing at the back. But you get a show that outdoes anything on Shaftesbury Avenue right now. And for the price of a couple of tubs of ice cream at The Olivier.

Riki Lindhome came to prominence as part of the comedy songwriting/performing duo Garfunkel and Oates with Kate Micucci, with their first hit being the song "Pregnant Women Are Smug." "Everyone knows it, nobody says it, because they're pregnant". Her new show, Dead Inside, which debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, is about her "fertility journey", and she is well aware of her comedy journey in that respect. Though as she points out, "no one talks about a man's 'gout journey'". Which, I admit, as a cis white straight male in my fifties, does give me an idea for a podcast. But this show has been on a journey since it began as well. There have been, as they say, developments.

During the show, she talks about the many hormone treatments she was on, and how they seemed to lead her to watch and rewatch many Disney animated musicals. Her frustration with the Hero's Journey being applied to all these Disney Princesses, where, in her mind, the Female Hero's Journey (or more specifically the non-cis white male with celebrity parents journey) has a few more hoops, circles, recurring patterns and general plate of spaghetti thrown on the screen aspects to it. We see this both in her life, her "fertility journey", but also in a new project that this inspires. Wanting to write all the songs in an animated musical movie based on the lives of the Ugly Step-Sisters, with the idea that her future child might be able to hear them, rather than everything else Riki is better known for (Don't Google Mommy), she realises that she is just going to have to write the film herself, does so, writing, rewriting pitching and selling the film as a way not to deal with everything else in her life, going round in the loops of the Female Hero's Journey, trapped in the Eternal Forest, without a mentor to guide the way, or the special information to find a way out.

And this is told in parallel with her attempts to have a child through all manner of means, and in the end, it turns out, with all manner of people. Partners, friends, people she finds on the internet. The creative drive to create is often compared to that of having children; here, the two are brought together like never before. It is an astounding creative achievement, not just to find the tragedy in your life and express it as beauty, but to do it twice, twisted round each other, informing and reflecting each other like a double helix of DNA.

But also being incredibly silly at the same time, such as a song (one of those only being performed at this show and no one has posted it on TikTok yet) in which she looks at other Disney princesses and their own potential fertility journeys; Ariel is fine, she produces 20,000 eggs at one time, while Elsa's eggs…. are frozen.

However, wherever, whenever you get to see it, I hope you do. Dead Inside is an insanely brilliant production, and just like Riki Lindhome's songs, very far from an exclusive show, as a straight cis white male who has, you know, experienced some aspects of life, it was grippingly hilarious, and vastly intelligent, repeatedly flattering the intelligence of the audience and men, don't we just love that, challenging us to keep up. Every moment on stage counts, including what seems like fripperies; it is full of narrative callbacks and parallels that would make Edgar Wright applaud and go back to his latest screenplay for a rewrite. But that's just the maths of it. Emotionally? The mentor/special information bit hit me hard, but I also cried actual tears and cheered actual cheers. It does have trigger warnings over abortion and miscarriage and yeah, that's a thing, and the song to her child who never was is the most heartbreaking of the show, but it was also matched with the reaction of medical professional during the very worst of the very worst of those times you could imagine, or could recall, suddenly asking Riki if she recognises her from The Big Bang Theory, and Riki getting a dopamione hit from the recognition. That's how she gets through it, that's how we get through it. I promise you, as someone who has been through some of that, and sitting with someone who has directly been through all of it, the tears are earned, worthy, cathartic, and get you through to a happy ending. Yeah, there's a song about that too. The show is so worth the journey. The audience's journey, that is. Riki Lindhome is the hero.

Other songs in the show you can find elsewhere include Middle Age Love, which she opens with (yeah yeah), So Long Farewell (A Breakup Anthem for Baroness Schraeder), but the added context of her own relationship at the time makes that so much deeper, Hysteria… again, you can see her point even more in the show, as with Bio Dad which she just put up twelve days ago but there are more, much more…

Dead Inside is currently playing 9.30 pm. Monday to Saturday at the Soho Theatre, Dean Street, London, until the 18th of April. Honestly, at that time, there's nothing better you could be doing, including having sex. Save that for after, or do it earlier, when it's still light. The show finishes after 11 pm, and these days, they disapprove of that sort of thing on the night bus home. She is looking to bring the show to New York (where you will have to pay a lot more to see it) and film it as a special. It is the best show I have seen on stage this year. How can you tell? I am going again on Wednesday night and taking people with me, two rows back. I can't give it a higher mark than that. So 10/10 or five stars will have to do. Full price tickets are £25 or $30. Seriously now.

Dead Inside by Riki Lindhome

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Review by Rich Johnston

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10/10

Dead Inside by Riki Lindhome is the most life-affirming show of all. Descriubing her "fertility journey" through the kind of setbacks that would stop an invading army, there are tears, laughter, songs and utter outrage. But she promises a happy ending. And that's one of her jokes too.

Credits

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Writer/Musician/Singer/Actor

Riki Lindhome

Director

Brian McElhaney

Producer

Ali Wong

Producer

Bill Hader

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