With possibly the most provocative title on the Fringe, Joanne Tremarco’s one-woman show investigates female sexuality, aiming to shed a little light on a subject often shrouded in darkness.  As a fool, rather than an actor, Tremarco’s performance is improvised; she questions and challenges the audience, and uses our responses to inform her act. At its best, it works very well, taking an idea and using physicality to play with it – sharing the subject with the audience rather than mocking it.

Tremarco is a charming presence, chatting to us as we arrive and guiding us to our seats; it’s a clever technique, making us feel at home while also taking control of the space. I was gently harried around the room until I sat where I was told. Her costume is an inspired choice too: the elegant flowing pink dress seems entirely demure, until she flings the skirts over her head and around her to represent the vulva.

To me to many others, that moment was hilarious, but some in the audience clearly found parts of the show genuinely difficult.  Tremarco did a fine job in respecting that fact, while still remaining challenging – but in an improvised show you do have to work with what the audience gives you, and it’s here that she encountered a few problems.  The Buxton Fringe is possibly unique in the range of people that will come to a show like this; as a forty-something man, I was in the middle of a range from twenty years older to twenty and more years younger. It was noticeable that the bulk of the laughter came from the younger members, while the older people were often the more prepared to engage.

At times, then, it felt as if the contributions of those older were being used to feed the laughter of those younger – particularly the younger men – who, perhaps feeling they invented sex, were both amazed at the absurdity of older people still having an interest in it and amused by how horrified they must be at its discussion. Of course, many of the older audience members were not shocked at all – they’ve seen it all before – but at times, that split in attitudes was an uncomfortable experience.  While Tremarco coped admirably with the difficult balance of her audience, it’s a shame she didn’t challenge these attitudes a little more, perhaps by asking when exactly the twenty-somethings present intended to retire from sex?

Tremarco also tried to raise some important topics, notably feminism, which unfortunately didn’t seem to gain much traction with the audience.  The focus thus remained firmly on the physical aspects of female sexuality.  But there’s nothing wrong with that – as demonstrated by one of the more moving moments of the show, when the women present in the audience could come up with so few examples of ever being spoken to about the pleasure they could get from sex.

So perhaps that’s the true value of Tremarco’s show: the simple fact that it offers an opportunity to talk openly about sexual pleasure. But the Fringe isn’t just about worthiness, and Women Who Wank is also an entertaining and genuinely thought-provoking evening. And of course, it will be different every time.