Written By: Cassie Cormican

Divorce may not typically be a laughing matter. However, today I had the opportunity to watch Sarah Iles, a stand-up comedian, who talks her audience through the absolute joys of being divorced. In her show Decree Absolute Vodka, Iles begins by asking who may also be divorced in the audience. For a such a small venue, I was surprised at the mass amount of people who were. She cracks of some jokes to play around, and has the entire room in tears.

This natural story-teller takes us through her journey about how stand-up comedy became her life, and she eventually fell out of love with her spouse. She begins by explaining where her and her ex-partner had met and fell in love. Ironically, this was the same place where she had decided that she did not love him anymore.

For those of you wondering, a Decree Absolute is a court of law’s final order officially ending a marriage. Here in the UK, Iles stresses about how difficult it was to get a divorce and how the process seems to never end. The only thing getting her through this tough time; Absolute Vodka. Iles play on words as the title of her show was genius and humorous.

After going through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout this journey, Iles had shared quite a lot of crude and personal information about her now single, dating life. Again, the crowd could not wipe the smile off their face. During her performance, Iles pulls out a poster board and yells, “WE’RE GOING TO PLAY FAMILY FORTUNE!” Again, given the size of the venue and the amount of people there, I did not expect her to interact with her audience as much as she did, yet she even had a game ready for us to play along.

If you can appreciate the truth of how life knocks you down at times, Decree Absolute Vodkais a perfect show. Iles creates a space where the harsh reality of life is just something we must laugh at in order for us to not dwell. I applaud her bravery by telling her story about her hardships, and because I found her performance relatable, I had enjoyed myself even more.