Review: SOPHIE DUKER: BUT DADDY I LOVE HER, Soho Theatre

“Just to be clear, I do not have daddy issues”

Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her starts on a high, with music blasting and the lights flashing as Duker jumps into the audience, running around and dancing her heart out, encouraging the crowd to cheer even more for her. Duker then jumps back on stage and, with a grin, tells us the one thing we need to know about her - “I am delusional.”

Before we can really get into the show, Duker must check the vibe of the crowd, figuring out what the audience of Soho Theatre Downstairs is really like. One member of the audience is selected to be Duker’s “Temporary Daddy” through the selection process of Duker finding a man in the audience who came alone and is not creepy.

There is a purpose to this - Duker confesses that she always thought she had a “cool” vibe, but this is proven wrong when she goes to a party and has her friends describe her vibe, leading to her being labeled a “lefty” and the realisation that, because of racism, most black people end up simply being called “cool” by white people. 

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Duker explains what being delusional - or as she prefers to call it, “delulu” - means. As defined by Duker, being delulu is “tactically opting out of reality,” making up false realities to fit your own narrative in a world where you are the main character and everyone else is just extras. Duker has what she considers to be her “delulu dream” - being a hot girl. And she doesn’t mean just being an attractive woman - she wants to be so pretty that she causes trouble. 

Most of the show follows Duker’s journey to accepting the delulu side of her, which she thinks may have come from her parents. Her mother has a tendency to hoard holy water and her father, who left when Duker was young, wants to schedule a Zoom therapy call with Duker in order to discuss their relationship. Zuker does a fantastic job of telling some great stories while still keeping her personal life private, only sharing what she wants the audience to know on a level she is comfortable with. 

But along with the stories about family, there are also some hilarious anecdotes thrown in, including one about how people treat cute babies versus ugly babies and another involving a first date gone horribly wrong because of Duker’s assumptions on the book The Body Keeps The Score (as Duker herself says, queer people love trauma).

In what feels like the more confessional part of the show, Duker admits that she has had a sugar daddy and is going to tell us a bit about her experiences with him. In order to preserve anonymity, she has the audience give him an accent (we chose “Russian”) and has a man give her a basic white man’s name (Brian). In a delightful surprise, we are treated to Duker singing a parody of “The Candy Man” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, singing about the “Creepy Man” who could potentially be her sugar daddy. 

Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her is a delusionally joyful hour of comedy that tackles the struggles that Duker faces as a main character in a world of extras. Delulu may actually be the “solulu” we are all looking for in life. 

Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her is at Soho Theatre until 19 October and will then be touring across the UK.

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