Deep down we all just want to feel like we’ve got it all together. We want to find ourselves, and when we do we want to find a ‘self’ that’s not a total asshole. Julia Rorke and Elysia Hall’s Not Another F****d B**** In India is all about the intersection of Instagram, the ‘law of attraction’ theory at the heart of The Secret, the Western appropriation of Eastern thought, pingers, bindis, gluten, Con Tiki tours and mistaking enlightenment for abandoning your responsibilities.
Rorke and Hall have a really symbiotic comedic partnership going on as they interpret different characters all in search of belonging in a world that is all about being seen to be a good person, rather than actually being a good person. The duo portrays the tensions running through friendships based more on group chats than on group activities. Sometimes those tensions are released pretty damn spectacularly (hint: if you’re in the first row, maybe watch out for flying yoga mats), and it all culminates in a free-for-all explosion of coke and carbs.
Rorke and Hall have differing yet complementary styles. Hall generally plays the more sympathetic characters, sometimes touching on more actorly realism than you might expect from a comedy show, whereas Rorke hits a more comically exaggerated level: annoying in all the right places, occasionally weirdly sympathetic such as when she plays the sister in a musical duo who has an unhealthy appreciation for her brother. Both are no strangers to performing their own solo shows and they work great as a team too.
As funny as the show is, it carries a real message about how the pressure to present yourself as enlightened and hash-taggable creates its own unique social anxiety. If it’s not on Instagram, did it even happen? What’s the hidden message buried in perfectly-posed and edited holiday snaps? There may not necessarily be any answers in here but it sure is cathartic to see the question so thoroughly and hilariously deconstructed. This is a really fast-paced, incredibly funny show that is well and truly worth enlightening yourself with.
By Peter Hodgson
