Sarah Kendall: Touchdown

It’s a brave move by Sarah Kendall, moments into her set, to throw away a key device in any standup’s toolkit. By retelling a breezy anecdote from her previous show—about getting away with calling her high school coach a cunt—she invites the laughs it got in 2012. This time, though, she admits it was all a lie. Her mother was there back in 1992, and has challenged Kendall to tell everyone what really happened.

So unfolds a cinematic coming-of-age tale, making no secret of the debt it owes to the Eighties teen movies of John Hughes. Sarah is a goofy loner, permanently sweat-drenched in the Australian heat and shunned by the girls on her rugby team. Then the coach’s daughter, Abby, comes along – popular, beautiful, yet with integrity beyond the clique queen cliché. They bond over a love of puerile graffiti—one of a few episodes Kendall expertly milks for callbacks—and a firm friendship blossoms, before an unwitting betrayal turns things sour. Meanwhile, Sarah finds her first true love. That, too, hits a stumbling block of its own.

Kendall has a sharp ear for pacing, allowing the emotional peaks and troughs space to ring out. Each character is vividly drawn, never appearing without some recurring trademark quirk, whether it’s her shrill mum’s attempts at teen slang or the librarian’s hungover belches. This supporting cast provides levity, while Kendall’s intensity keeps the audience gripped all the way to an affecting third-act reveal.

The premise that Kendall has this year forgone artistic licence does, given the polish of her storytelling, take some believing. But this is a touching tale well told, and the show feels satisfyingly complete.