Written and performed by Kate-Lois Elliot, How to Belong Without Joining a Cult is based on Elliot’s mother’s experience growing up in a cult, until she ran away at the age of 16. As Elliot herself mentions, it was unfortunately not a sexy cult, but it provided her with an incredibly philosophical, honest, and hilarious lens through which the show explores the need for people to belong.
At the beginning of her comedy show, the audience is asked to design their own cult. While the audience are fleshing out the details of their ideal cult, Elliot talks about her mother’s time in a cult and how she now, like Netflix, has an obsession with cults. Her show goes on to discuss many elements of everyday culture that can be classified as cults. From Tesco clubcards to book clubs, she examines these in-groups in a way that is both thought-provoking and hilarious. The show invites the audience to reflect on their own habits, as the world of hidden cults is displayed through Elliot’s comedic and clever storytelling. At the end of the show, the audience has compiled an insane concept of a cult, in which everyone can laugh at the idea of joining. When Elliot removes the more abstract characteristics of the audience’s cult, she once again asks if people would join a group to do some of these social things some of the time. The overarching theme of this show is that people don’t join cults, they are often just searching for a way of belonging. Elliot’s razor sharp wit and clever composition of this performance taps into the cultural zeitgeist around searching for meaning and how that can make us vulnerable.
“Elliot’s razor sharp wit and clever composing of this performance taps into the cultural zeitgeist around searching for meaning and how that can make us vulnerable”
Expertly written by Elliot, How to Belong Without Joining a Cult was one of the highlights of my Fringe. Treading the thin line between comedy and existential crisis, Elliot manages to provide an insightful and thought-provoking performance while also having the audience in stitches. Armed with witty callbacks and cultural observations, I am incredibly excited to see what Elliot does next.
