Fringe World review: Lucy Peach: My Greatest Period Ever – 13 February; How to Period Like a Unicorn – 22 February
De Parel Spiegeltent

Self-identified ‘Period Preacher’ Lucy Peach welcomes us to her womb in My Greatest Period Ever and the all-ages spinoff How to Period Like a Unicorn.

Concerned with the conventional focus on the crap parts of periods, Peach has decided to ‘life-hack’ menstruation by rebranding the four stages of the menstrual cycle. Part folk pop performance, part Sex Ed TED talk, Peach’s shows propose that the hormonal changes of menstruation can be embraced and utilised productively.

In a laid-back lesson punctuated with heartfelt pop songs and casual banter, Peach advocates for menstruators to embrace this concept of a cyclical rather than linear lifestyle – in which the dreaded PMS can instead be re-conceptualised as your ‘creative phase’.

With a background in sexual health education and an amazing voice, Peach is well qualified to talk (and sing) on the topic, as she performs against a backdrop of live digital drawings performed by the ‘hardest working period illustrator around’, her husband Richard Berney.

Both her shows provide mindful and inspiring advice to help us understand, plan around, and love the menstrual cycle. Peach charmingly celebrates the stages of menstruation with audience volunteers throughout the shows, invoking a sense of menstrual community within the spiegeltent. How to Period Like a Unicorn offers the same fundamental content as the award-winning My Greatest Period Ever, albeit tailored to a younger crowd (there’s no swearing, but strangely also no mention of unicorns).

Whether you buy into Peach’s themed phases or not, the underlying message is still important; that we should pay attention to our bodies, accept them, and give them what they need. As long as menstruation remains such a taboo topic in the mainstream (as seen earlier this year when Facebook deemed Peach’s Fringe advertising ‘non-compliant’), opening up about the subject will remain a radical act.

Delightfully informative and empowering, Lucy Peach’s period performances make for inspiring viewing for previous, current and future menstruators (and their allies).

‘How to Period Like a Unicorn’ runs until 25 February 2018.

2024 UPDATE: 
My Greatest Period Ever plays The Hat Trick at The Pleasure Garden, 10-18 February 2024.

Pictured top: Rebranding the menstrual cycle: Lucy Peach in ‘How to Period Like a Unicorn’.