There are leaps required of artists in this week’s Blue Tick festival, showcasing internet comedy on the big screen. It’s a leap from handheld home entertainment to an (almost) live event. And from short to long-form: this screening of clips by Margate’s Chi With a C (AKA Lucia Keskin) is 90 minutes long. Fellow artists Alistair Green and The Pin, both live acts, may better present their work in-person. No great effort is made to structure Keskin’s videos into a satisfying hour-plus of comedy, yet even discharging her host responsibilities as minimally as possible, we glimpse the effective live act Keskin might become. Her talent and sense of fun radiates from every sketch on screen.
She began YouTubing at 16, opening her GCSE results live on the platform. But the shtick she’s since developed isn’t autobiographical. Most of Chi’s videos are TV parodies – albeit parodies with only the occasional satirical intent. Make no mistake: her facsimile Killing Eve, Vicar of Dibley and Ab Fab skits (Chi’s tastes are surprisingly old school) are humdrum-brilliant. She’s a fine mimic, nailing the spirit, if not always the letter, of every character in the sitcom Motherland. The pleasure is heightened by the deceptive crappiness of the mise en scène: every video finds now 20-year-old Keskin in duff wigs and marker pen facial hair, green-screened against static backdrops. And yet, there’s tech wizardry on display as her multiple selves interact.
She can write a mean joke, too, even if her pastiche scripts can be indistinguishable from the real thing. Is there a point, other than the pleasures of fancy dress and burlesquing TV on the cheap? If not, well, those pleasures can be considerable, as Keskin plays Theresa May on Strictly, bopping to the News at Ten theme. I had a softer spot for her more absurdist sketches that float free of TV source material – like the viral hit that finds two mini Lucias duetting with one another in a cereal cupboard, while lifesize Chi blankly looks on. Ninety minutes may be too much of a samey thing. But Keskin’s compelling comic sensibility – and breakout potential – is clear.
• The Blue Tick festival runs until 19 August.
