reviews - THE BOOB SHOW - Phoenix Theatre

Sally Jo Bannon
photo by Reg Madison Photography

highlights from local critics reviews - (click link at bottom of each review to read complete review)

Click here for more information on this production that runs through March 25th.

".Fifteen years ago, Valley actress and singer Sally Jo Bannow was treated for breast cancer. That incident was the catalyst for her one-woman show The Boob Show, which focuses on both our fascination with breasts and the varied attitudes and views people have about them. Threaded throughout the show is also the cathartic theme of a woman finding a way to counter fears of her cancer diagnosis and realize the power she has along with her high level of self-esteem and self-worth. The show, after several years of development, is in its main stage debut at Phoenix Theatre. Unfortunately, while the final moments are rewarding, the show is only mildly amusing, with an uneven amount of material and not enough of Bannow's personal story to make the journey as rewarding as it could be....if this show is to have a future, perhaps eliminating some of the characters that aren't that specific to the theme of the show ... and having a better focused opening with more dramatic elements would result in a more moving piece. " -Gil Benbrook, Talkin' Broadway (click here to read the complete review)

"..Sally Jo Bannow’s experience as a cancer survivor does frame her “celebration of boobs,” but she certainly doesn’t dwell on the medical minutiae...while the show produces more chuckles than belly laughs, it’s certainly a pleasure to watch Bannow operating boob puppets, launching boob balls from a slingshot brassiere and swinging a ventriloquist’s dummy from a pair of falsies. ...builds toward an impassioned statement of self-acceptance that’s genuinely rousing.. " - Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic (click here to read the complete review)

"...There’s no doubt, The Boob Show is a passion project, born of a personal crisis..Sally Jo (Bannow)’s climactic, impassioned rap, delivered with an ever-increasing, ardent fury...feels genuine and heartfelt – but in the end... the play feels too long. There’s sixty minutes of something good. The rest, like an overstuffed bra, is just padding." -David Appleford, Valley Screen and Stage (click here to read the complete review)

"Sally Jo Bannow is a multi-talented local performer equally at home in plays or musicals.  In 2003, she confronted breast cancer that in 2015 led to a play with music about the situation.  “The Boob Show” needed polishing but it was a heartfelt and emotional story about how she tackled the cancer battle....Originally, it was a very personal, very touching look at how Bannow dealt with her cancer.  The reworked version has been expanded to include lots of mediocre humor and exhaustive sections a..By being less personal and due to its evolution into a glitzy musical, “The Boob Show” ...now seems draggy...As a performer, Bannow is good throughout but the moments that most impact audiences are rushed and those quieter scenes that formerly gave audiences penetrating insight into Bannow’s struggles have become nothing more than mediocre entertainment.....  .." --Chris Curcio, KBAQ (click here to read the complete review)

"The very talented and versatile Sally Jo Bannow has a lot to say about the breast!...There is a powerful theme ~ that defining a woman by the size and shape of her breast is demeaning and destructive ~ that weaves throughout her performance, but it risks getting lost in periodic snarls of distraction, forays into comic shticks, hip hop fist-pumping raps, and highly predictable but trite word plays on boob and mammary....The result is a revue that's overlong by an act and loses the traction of its central message...." - Herbert Paine, Broadway World (click here to read the complete review)