Primal Bog - Rosa Garland on at Soho Theatre Upstairs. Ambitious, Unsettling and Grotesque

Simon
Mar 4
2 min read

Reviewers Simon Darnley & Michelle Guinness

Soho Theatre Upstairs from Wednesday 25th February - Saturday 7th March 2026.

Person kneels on blue tarp, wearing sunglasses and orange outfit, with orange slime on hair and body. Tattoo visible on leg.

★★★

With a bold opening urinating naked into a flower vase before covering herself in bright orange slime, Rosa sets the tone for the rest of the show.

Performed virtually naked for the majority of the hour Rosa slides from one vignette to another, writhing in slime, kissing worms or watching video of a man preforming canoe circles while being tattooed live on stage.

Garland admirably fully commits to each vignette and her on-stage presence is engaging and likable. However overall, even though there are flashes of non-verbal slapstick comedy it feels less like a comedy show and more like accidentally wandering into someone’s very messy psychotherapy session with lashings of orange angel delight.

Moments that hint at emotional depth are overwhelmed by shock tactics and deliberate baiting of her audience and subject matter. Bashing women such as Gwyneth Paltrow becomes repetitive, and the flashes of imagination are buried under the grotesque. Her comparison to a ‘fever’ dream is incredibly accurate in a disturbing way but is mental health and hearing voices actually that funny.

She deploys variations of disgust and shock without exploring what this means and uses this content to repeatedly unsettle her audience. The performance itself is ambitious in its intent, however the fixation on bodily fluids, sexuality, discomfort and worms rarely leads to insight or anything genuinely funny, frequently settling for quick easy reactions, laughter born of discomfort, awkwardness, and disbelief. Instead of pushing boundaries it pushes disbelief and the held breath of anticipation that any one of us in the audience may get covered in goo or in her urine.