Patricia Goldsack looks like just the kind of old lady I don’t want to become: bent, bespectacled, hair in a bun, voice pitched to a squawk, innocuous seeming. 

Ah, but Pat Goldsack, appearing at the newly established Dakota, is not your run-of-the-mill old lady. Katie Boyle, the performer who gives us this astonishing persona, runs a swingers club and brothel and in this conversation with us she ventures into the arena of sex with an appealing combination of ingenuousness and bravado.

We’re welcomed as visitors to her establishment while she sets up a tea table, albeit with the addition of a giant banana and a cucumber. An audience titter proclaims that we’re not as green as the cucumber. 

“We’re all here for the swinging,” Pat informs us cheerfully. Then she proceeds to give us a set of rules for our sexual behaviour.

A recommended limbering up exercise has her requesting help from a male audience member who, in his attempts to get her unstuck, unwittingly demonstrates only the first of various coital positions you’ve never seen before.

“Always get consent,” she advises, as innocently as if she wasn’t aware of current #MeToo complaints. 

Pat got started on her career when she met Barbara, an American accountant who was already versed in the lifestyle our Pat was beginning to get interested in. So they teamed up and went into the sex business.

Not everyone could get away with the sort of antics Pat relates and gets her audience to participate in. There’s no prurience here, and nothing to offend. Instead, we get a few gentle pokes at the ever tempting target of sex and our attitudes to it.

Pat’s finale takes us by surprise. We think we’ve seen it all, and we think Pat’s had it all, but there’s just one unfulfilled wish she’d like some man’s help with. She surveys us hopefully, and there’s one more male out there who steps up…

This is a show: you don’t have to join the swingers club; you can just watch. 

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When Patricia Goldsack – Pat to friends and lovers – hobbles across the stage, putting on some tunes and pulling out the kettle, the effect is near instantaneous. The warm, peaceful atmosphere is the exact and uncanny sensation of visiting your grandma’s house – with much better jokes.

Over the course of this hour show, Pat shares the rules of her swingers club, tells wild tales of her many husbands, and gives a few “practical demonstrations” with audience members to keep things spicy. Indeed, there is more physical comedy than you’d expect from an 87-year-old – but Pat excels at defying expectations.

As Pat, actress Katie Boyle is utterly phenomenal and demonstrates her extensive talent. Her physicality, voice and classic costuming push the character to the extremes of elderly comedy, but is so believable that no matter how hard you look you simply can’t even see the young woman underneath. She also has a well-honed wit, and her improvised comments cause explosive laughter from the enthralled audience.

Many comedic shows can struggle with deeper moments of emotion – this is not the case here. Pat Goldsack hits every high and then can nearly bring a tear to the eye as you learn about what she really wants from this world.

While there isn’t a lot of structure to Pat’s storytelling, this doesn’t negatively impact the performance – indeed, you’ll happily stay for another two hours just listening to naughty, loveable and hilarious Pat chat and share hilarious tidbits (and her biscuits).

Come for the biscuits. Stay for the grandmother you never knew you needed. 

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