I lost half a day of skiing!

It’s been a year since I witnessed the miraculous madness of Awkward Productions’ Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story, so it has also been a year since I became a fully-fledged fan of the duo’s hilarious brand of ‘queer chaos’.

Thank goodness, in that case, that Gwyneth Goes Skiing has arrived in Oxford. For two nights only the City of Dreaming Spires (or more specifically, the North Wall Arts Centre) plays host to what one might call a realistic documentary-style performance of the courtroom drama that unfolded in Utah, March 2023.

OK, so perhaps it’s not entirely (or even a little bit) realistic. But what it lacks in realism, it makes up for in laugh-out-loud entertainment. For instance, our eponymous heroine, “Goop-founding, Door-Sliding, Shakespeare-In-Loving, consciously-uncoupling Hollywood superstar” is magnificently portrayed by one half of Awkward Productions, Linus Karp. There is something so elegantly Gwyn-like about how he holds himself throughout the show, but especially in the courtroom-set second half (after the Gwynterval, of course).

But I am getting ahead of myself. First – exposition.

In 2016, Gwyneth did indeed go skiing. So did a retired optometrist (VERY different to an optician) called Terry Sanderson (played here by a brilliantly manic Joseph Martin). On the slopes of Deer Valley, Utah, two worlds collided. Well, one world collided into another, and Gwyneth Goes Skiing sets to detail both the incident itself, and the subsequent court case, 7 years later.

The buzzing audience at the North Wall Arts Centre were all in for the madcap rendition of events and it turned out to be just the tonic for a chilly Thursday evening in October. With the use of puppets (indeed, Sanderson’s lawyer is played by a Martin-operated muppet), a cardboard deer on a wheeled clothes rail (transported on and off stage by a pointedly humourless Stage Manager) and members of the audience standing in as key players, we were treated to a couple of hours of chaotic, camp comedy, peppered with the occasional fact (“she actually said that!”).

Along with the on-stage action we were also treated to original songs by Leland (singer-songwriter of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Troye Sivan and Cher fame) and a “video call” from Trixie Mattel (winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars) as Gwyneth’s mother Blythe Danner.

By the end of the show my face ached from laughing, and I skipped out of the theatre with a lighter step. If you like your comedy with spiky, occasionally sweary, edges, and a hefty dose of mayhem, I cannot recommend Gwyneth Goes Skiing enough. Seek it out – it’s touring basically everywhere!