Review: Good Luck, Cathrine Frost!

The show starts the moment the audience walks in the auditorium, greeted by the Norwegian actor Cathrine Frost who grips your hand and asks your name before sitting down. She then tells us how she works as a nurse and that there is a certain way medical professionals shake hands to encourage comfort and understand health. It is a great way to start a show that examines women’s health as guided by Frost’s warm and charming hand. 

2024 marks the English language debut of this show which has been a hit in Norway, winning a prestigious Hedda award. Frost was inspired to make this show after a traumatic birth, and the obstacles that she faced while trying to get pregnant. You can tell Frost is a seasoned performer, she is engaging and explains with candour and ease things like abortion law in her home country, capturing both the human feeling and unspoken facts and history of procedures like this. A particular highlight is when she explains Socrates’ teachings (or lack thereof) on conception through the ancient Greek combat sport of pankration. 

Frost's writing is lean and not patronising to her audience, she captures the swirling paradoxes and unspoken loneliness around reproductive health. The show’s sequence on the subject of miscarriage is certainly the show’s most gut-wrenching and again melds the raw feeling and unspoken truths of this. 

The show I attended was cut five minutes short because of the blackout that affected many of the major Fringe venues on Friday afternoon. It was such a shame because the show was reaching a beautiful and communal climax. The show continued – until we were kicked out – by audience torch light and was a testament to the way Frost had been treating the audience like her peers throughout the show.