Review: Greta Titelman's Exquisite Lies

Greta Titelman makes her Fringe debut with Exquisite Lies, a journey through her teenage years and early adulthood, when she used to lie as a coping mechanism. Telling her story through dark humour and song, she doesn’t hold back on the details of deceit, drama and delusion.

Growing up with unhappy parents and bullied in school, Titelman acted out from an early age. Doing the entire hour in the voice of the poorly adjusted brat she once was, she talks and sings her way through boarding school in Connecticut and moving to New York, when she was heavily smoking, drinking and lying to deal with her life spiralling out of control.

Titelman is convincing as that one friend we all knew in school who always lied to get attention, which makes it difficult to sympathise with her. Being deeply unlikeable works if the show is exceptionally funny or if there’s a point when the authentic self comes through. Neither is the case in Exquisite Lies. Titelman seems to know that behaving like a terror was her way of dealing with trauma but chooses not to reveal who she is today or if she’s learned anything, and while she gets some laughs out of her candid stories, she probably won’t be making any friends.