REVIEW: GOD BOMB by Renée Rossi at Hen and Chickens
‘good, fresh and original comedy ’★★★★
A foray into stand-up at the Camden Fringe rather than our usual drama, and a reminder of how good fresh, original, well-devised comedy can be. Renée Rossi gives an hour of sketches and gags based broadly around the theme of organised religion, specifically Christianity, and perhaps more specifically Catholicism. And, while like all sketch shows some bombs hit harder than other and some simply bomb, the energy of Rossi’s performance and coherence of her premise deliver far more hits than misses.
Among other excellent skits, we get a glimpse of how the world might have been if the Serpent had had Adam rather than Eve taste the forbidden fruit (over-confident, self-regarding, bit creepy), how an actor who wants to be Mary in the nativity play can all the same do something unexpected with the role of ‘sheep’, and how all the other mothers have decent, smiling photos of their kids they can show around but Mary Mother of God can’t catch a break on that one. The show risks polemic without much humour in the sections on Mother Teresa’s absence of goodness, though the anger driving that justifies its inclusion.
Around it all, there’s also a neat framing device where Renée applies to an unseen panel to be a Saint, even though she’s not good, or even Catholic, or has any of the required two miracles to her credit – no spoiler alerts on how she resolves that one.
It’s a very fluent performance with a script that’s been worked on and honed and some excellent punchlines (a water into wine one’s beautifully set up), although the sketches sometimes take a little long to reach them. And all this is interspersed with ‘religious’ music (My Sweet Lord, Sympathy for the Devil etc) and entirely unexpected props (holy macaroni!).
Only two nights, so already over, at least at this venue, but this feels like a show with legs, and well worth catching when it travels.
GOD BOMB by Renée Rossi at Hen and Chickens 22 & 23 August 2026
Produced by TheHatchery — the resident creative incubator at the Hen and Chickens Theatre.
David Weir is the author of the Westminster Mysteries novels and his plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Murdering the Truth (Greenwich Theatre) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London).
