Gurl Code | Soho Theatre

Alex Franklin races onto the Soho Theatre stage, exclaiming with joy about how much space she has to run around. This is an excellent taster of what is to come, as for the next hour she doesn’t stop moving or talking, often at warp speed, as she performs a hilarious but moving comedy set on her experience as a ‘half-Chinese, trans, pansexual, neurodivergent gal…who loves racoons’.

The racoons are important, so important that there is an entire Powerpoint presentation dedicated to them. More important though, is the trans joy, which Franklin has in spades. The show opens and closes with a song on this topic, and on what trans women are and aren’t trying to do (in the ‘are’ column, exist, in the ‘aren’t’, anything that J K Rowling says they want to do, but if you weren’t on board with that already you probably wouldn’t be at an Alex Franklin show). 

A key thread running through the show, alongside the trans joy, is Franklin’s desire to come out to her father, but along the way there are numerous deep dives into Franklin’s past and topics which she finds interesting. There are many of these (hello ADHD hyperfixations), but chief among them, alongside racoons, are philosophical problems, video games, and how to source large items of furniture to give away as gifts.

The show is cleverly woven, with Franklin managing to head off on a tangent just long enough to convince the audience that this is just a side quest, before cleverly linking back into the overarching themes.

Attempts to engage the audience sometimes work better than others, with some reluctance to participate in a quiz on silhouettes of ‘regular men’ on the night I attended, but overall the jokes and references were clearly landing well, while Franklinseemed to genuinely want to connect to her audience rather than make them the butt of the joke.

Packed with laughter, poignancy, and increasingly niche references, Alex Franklin’s Gurl Code is a joyful exploration of one trans woman’s journey to self-acceptance.

Alex Franklin’s Gurl Code ran at Soho Theatre on 14th and 15th April.

★★★★☆ (4*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review