This is Chloe Petts like you have never seen her before. In one beat proclaiming she cannot talk about feelings, while also touching upon her childhood, her struggle with relationships and sex, and all of this while keeping the laughter coming.
The show is a fun celebration – so to say – of lad culture, the noughties, and what it’s like to date as a lesbian. It’s called Big Naturals, a funny nod to – well, essentially, big tits – and Petts’ first encounter with the female body through the pages of The Sun and The Mirror. An initiation into lad culture, which accompanies her through early adolescence and adulthood, and which she celebrates and parodies throughout her set at the Fringe.
While admitting she struggles to be seen as a sexual being by her parents, Petts still delivers a cracking image of her experience dating ‘tiny bisexuals’ and the low standards that come with dating men before dating women. Men take a beating sometimes, in a way that makes it impossible to see this as anything but ‘a little fun’, something the women in the audience seem to appreciate. But Pett is also appreciative of masculinity, especially referencing her own dad as an example of a man who embodies his masculinity without the need to perform it – and how he was the role model she was looking for all along.
The different demographics in the audience are what got me: from older gentlemen to younger LGBTQ+ people, we all seemed to love the show in equal measure and laugh just as hard as each other. It’s hilarious, quick, witty, and ends in the most iconic of ways: Petts leaving the stage with a ‘Boys get sad too – and the cure for this is blowjobs’ T-shirt.
Chloe Petts: Big Naturals, 33 Cabaret Bar or Forth (Pleasance Courtyard), until 24th August 2025
