Sheep.

Sheep are iconic.

So, let’s see. Sheep stories.

So, a few years ago, we were searching for somewhere shiny and new to add to our glamping chops (no poor-taste lamb ref intended).

What swung staying on a farm in Ironbridge for me, was not the engineering magnificence of its iron bridge, but a review I read (thanks Jessica W).

Not only did this review extol the virtues of the glamping pod with its own separate bedroom and cooking facilities, it mentioned sheep. In particular one sheep. A sheep called Brian who lived on the farm.

Now if that isn’t glorious enough in itself, I too had a Brian in my life. A cat called Bryan.

Booked.

Two minutes into our welcome talk and run-down of facilities by the farmer and owner, with the tenacity that only a toddler presenting as a grown woman can bring, I brought up Bryan the sheep. Before you can say ‘how old are you’, I was in the field with the farmer, brandishing sheep feed with pure glee and gay abandon.

My second sheep story comes from earlier this summer, staying in a Shepherd’s Hut, adjacent, incredibly adjacent, and of course aptly, to a field full of sheep. I enjoyed 3 nights, 2 days, revelling in their sheep behaviours, their frollicking, their dislike of rain (or which there was much), and penchant for eating and standing still next to a gate. Sheep being sheep. I genuinely miss them.

But on Sunday, I was whisked straight back to that ruminant (thanks Google) world, and it was a world in which I felt a deep sense of joy and comfort, and so was immediately on board with this show.

You’re invited to Hannah’s BIG GOODBYE PARTY!
(please, no presents)

Original songs, sheep facts, a banging rave and an emotional rollercoaster of a journey, The Beauty of Being Herd is a comedy about the search for belonging.

Hannah (Ruth Berkoff) has tried really hard to fit in and understand the rules, but it’s not working. So she’s leaving to start a new life… as a sheep.

But we mustn’t grieve, we mustn’t be sad. It’s a better place. It’s a place where there only four rules

Baaaah, Eat, Look around, Stick together…

Now, I write that with the caveat that the last two rules may come with a slight variation on this wording. Fairly confident on the ‘Baaaaah’ and even more so on the ‘Eat’, but because my short term memory is trash and I stubbornly refuse to make notes in real time (or indeed after) at performances because ‘I’m too busy feeling it, man’, I may have strayed a little. And I point this out because rules are important.

And I’m with Hannah on this one. Because despite…actually due to the fact that I tend to operate on a slightly surreal plane in my inner thoughts and approaches to life, I sometimes require a rule to give me that safety. That boundary. That way I can conform before taking flight, as it were.

I talk mainly about with other humans and this is where our hero-sheep Hannah sits. She tells us of her 3am moments, her run-down of (in her eyes) failed interactions from the past with colleagues, strangers at sex parties by mistake, and also with colleagues again (the worst). I should point out that I’m writing this at 5am – my flashbacks to embarrassing moments- past, having a lie-in today.

And so being a sheep seems the only obvious answer and let me tell you, I’m fully on board. For instance, we learn that an important part of being a sheep, is rumination.

Tick.

However, this is in a digestive context of the word – there’s a lot going on post ‘Eat’ rule. Either way, both definitions of the word appear to involve a lot of stillness almost to the point of paralysis, a fixed expression and time so yeah, tick.

You see this show isn’t about sheep. I mean it is, overridingly so. There’s no denying it. We join Hannah as she transforms into her sheep attire which involves a Primark t shirt, woolly pants, a scrunchie, socks o hands , knickers on head , and eyeliner. Kind of like a riff on the loungewear uniform of the masses over lockdown. Or the homeworker, if you please.

But it is about more. It’s about fitting in, it’s about scrabbling to know who you are, who others are, who you are in the context of who others are and where you sit in living upto their expectations and ‘social norms’.

Life is hard but even moreso when you’re constantly trying to find out what the rules are when it comes to other humans.

Ruth Berkoff aka Hannah, brings this to life with audience interaction (agh it’s ok, it’s optional. You can stay seated, you can play the part you want to play, you can full on leave if you’d like to). She engages her audience by inviting baahs, song, chair-frolicking, rule declaration (I was part of the section of the audience who had to shout out the rule ‘Eat!’, hence my confidence in getting this rule right, and to partake in cutlery charades (I knew she was being a soup spoon off the bat and way before another audience member shouted it out, I’ll have you know, but I hide my light under a bushel in the moment..:).

The Beauty or Being Herd is silly, surreal, sheep-heavy and also layered, resonating for many (me) and also very funny. And there was a comfort in Hannah suggesting we too join her in her new life and home in the field. And reader I’m tempted – only I’d miss true crime docs far too much. and cheese.

But that aside..:

For more information on Ruth and her work, visit https://www.ruthberkoff.com/thebeautyofbeingherd

For details of Women in Comedy, visit, we’ll https://womenincomedy.uk/