Is that a burrito in your pocket or are you just happy to have a burrito

When you walk into the green room at The Butterfly Club, you’re treated to the sight of a woman on stage, dancing away to Jump In Line (aka Shake, Shake, Shake, Senora). She tells you that she’s like a DVD that is ready to be played, and you get settled while she shimmies and strikes a pose at the right point in the song. And then the show begins.

Dancing queen, mime, comedian, but not a ‘comedienne’, Lauren Bok tells the audiences about the ‘burrito’ that is life. A little clarification – there are no burritos in this show. I repeat: no burritos in this show.

Combining gallows humour and slapstick, Lauren gives the audience insights into her ‘burrito’ – ugly celebrity crushes, one night stands and ‘slut brunch’ debriefs, contemplating selling her dignity for $10,000 while auditioning for the role of the schlumpy ‘period girl’ in an ad.

Each ingredient is thrown on almost haphazardly, with Lauren’s fantastic facial expressions, physical movements and casual political statements; and you can’t help but smile and laugh in the warmth of this messy burrito.

She starts off with light-hearted yet seemingly outrageous tidbits, garnering some awkward I-don’t-know-how-I-feel-about-this laughter, and some genuine guffaws too. As the audience gets more comfortable, she opens up and talks about her father’s death. Instead of bringing the mood down, the stories she tells about him pre- and post-death make you appreciate her ability to turn a tragic life event into a barrel of laughs.

Her bright, down-to-earth humour allows the audience to engage and interact with her, letting out a pantominic ‘oooohhh’ when she recalls the time her ex-boyfriend showed up to one of her shows with his new girlfriend, and providing vocal feedback on her slideshow of celebrity crushes while sharing their own.

Lauren calls herself an ‘oversharer’, due to the fact that she’s a middle child. And the details of her anecdotes are nothing short of saucy. Yet, the way she recounts them make you want to be amongst her brunch crowd after a night out, joining in with tales of your own ‘David Street’.

The show is running every night until this Sunday, 7 May, at the Butterfly Club. With her talent, it will come as no surprise that she won the Best Emerging Artist Weekly Award at Adelaide Fringe 2016, and is heading off to perform this very show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August. It is Cinco de Mayo today, I’d recommend you go and get yourself some burrito!

Is that a burrito in your pocket or are you just happy to have a burrito 
The Butterfly Club, Carson Place off Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Till Sunday, 7 May
thebutterflyclub.com/show