“Snappy, witty, hilarious, lightly outrageous and always sharply-observed. Comedy at its best.”
Following her multi-award-winning debut, Ms Samantha Mann returned to the stage in Dear Samantha to spill the beans on her life as a freelance Agony Aunt. Audiences could expect tips, reminiscences and a live consultation courtesy of Ms Samantha Mann's signature 'green card' technique.
As Ms Samantha Mann put it in the promotional material: “Anonymity is carefully guarded throughout. Tissues are provided. No satisfaction is guaranteed.”
First performed (as Behind The Agony) in 2017 at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden (UK) and most recently performed in Victoria (Canada) at the 2019 Victoria Fringe Festival, Dear Samantha is an introduction to the uncertain world of amateur advice-giving from a well-meaning spinster librarian with 20,000 views (and rising) on her very own YouTube advice channel.
Dear Samantha was nominated for Best Comedy Event at the 2018 Buxton Festival Fringe and was runner-up for the Favourite Comedy Award at the Victoria Fringe Festival 2019.
You can read some lovely reviews of the show here and here.
(You might be interested to know, by the way, that the show You Bring The Agony, I'll Bring The Aunt, which was Ms Samantha Mann’s first attempt to bring Agony Aunting to the masses, won her an award for Best Individual Performance (Comedy) at the 2016 Buxton Festival Fringe.)
The video recording above was made at the Buxton Fringe Festival on the 9th July, 2018, by Sean Mason for Pull Focus productions.
Anybody who is interested can listen to Ms Samantha Mann spilling some of her trade secrets, (recorded on the 21st of December 2016 at a session of House Of Idiot in a room above the Market House pub in Brixton, London) here:
Photograph at the top of this page by Katherine Leedale