Flo & Joan: With Feeling review – sisters turn an old rock setlist into hilariously neurotic songs

The last time Flo & Joan played Shepherd’s Bush Empire, they found a setlist on stage left by beloved indie-rock band the Feeling on the previous night. It made the sisters contemplate their own relationship to the music industry. Are Flo & Joan a proper band or doomed for ever to remain “musical comedy”? The problem with which, they deadpan here, is that “no one takes it seriously”. Cue this new show, its structure inspired by that chance discovery. Tonight, the duo play a suite of new songs that, title by title, matches the setlist of the band who preceded them four years ago. And so goes the first half of With Feeling, which by turns delivers on and subverts that challenge – and proves handsomely entertaining either way. In the sisters’ hands, Fill My Little World becomes a neurotic number about the surfeit of stuff (cheap food, fast fashion, AI slop). Never Be Lonely returns to a favoured topic, Flo & Joan’s toxic co-dependency – with an added sight gag involving Joan (AKA Rosie Dempsey)’s questionable trumpet skills. Further numbers address the risks of poor punctuation and the need, in a society giddy on unfiltered self-expression, to “bring back shame”.