"Her funny, hectoring tone and her perky mien bring a lively new perspective to an oft-heard plaint...She is often blistering—much of the show is essentially a free-form rant—but her anger is always tempered by natural warmth...A few too many of the complaints feel recycled, and none are likely to ruffle the feathers of anyone in her audience...Still, it was only when Ms. Arcade shifted into uplift mode that my interest began to flag...I loved her most when she was freely hating."
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"A Village Hero, delighted to be in her mid-sixties and operating with the throttle wide open…She's almost always doing some version of the Pony, hopping in circles as she tries to spur us to greater authenticity…She alternates her charm with wake-up calls, her humor with rage. Arcade in her marvelous middle age is a lovely example to us all. Yes, you've got to tell all your truth to power, but you don't have to stop dancing to do it."
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"There is something invigorating about seeing a gobby older woman loudly and unashamedly owning the stage. Yep, she shouts quite a lot and there’s plenty of sloganising, most of which doesn’t really bear too deep an examination. But there’s something so warm about the way she sprays the verbal bullets that you can’t help nodding along, even if the ultimate message sounds suspiciously like something out of a self-help manual."
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"Penny Arcade is less a breath of fresh air and more a force 10 gale, who could easily blow the less sturdy away. To describe her views as forthright is understating the case...The performer’s delivery falls somewhere between stand-up comedienne and radical, tub-thumping politician, which ensures that audience members will be kept on their metaphorical toes...The lively performance is considerably enhanced by a wonderful soundtrack, carefully choreographed to fit the words."
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"Arcade’s 'Longing Lasts Longer' is a heartfelt critique of a world that she thinks is hurtling headlong into consumerist mediocrity...While the outlook sounds mournful Arcade’s personality is anything but downbeat. She bounces on the spot and apologizes for her wobbling breasts. She goes off-script and loses her place and the looseness is endearing. And she certainly makes a heap of valid points."
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"There’s no defining Penny Arcade. When she climbs on stage to perform the 65-year-old New York underground diva makes it clear in the first minute or so that this is not theatre, nor stand-up comedy, nor even performance art; it is, she says, something else, a rap or maybe a rant, about a few things that have happened to the human mind during her lifetime...Presented at high speed and accompanied by a thundering mix-tape of musical cues from Arcade’s underground past."
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"These killer one-liners – delivered with the camp, chewed up expressions that Arcade no doubt picked up from her time in the 1960’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous – sustain a rather academic entreaty...More so, there is desperation in Arcade’s fear-filled eyes, having seen the decline of 1960s revolutionaries and Warholian superstars, and the rising dominance of political-correctness epitomized by today’s Millennials...Arcade is drug, sex and rock’n’roll, a damn champion of the counter-culture."
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"Penny Arcade is a counter-cultural legend. Unlike the false rebels of rock'n'roll, who are willing to relax into nostalgia and revisit their glorious past, Arcade is still raging...With only a live DJ mix for support, she takes on what she sees as the triumph of advertising and the gentrification of the mind...She recalls a preacher, shouting to the wilderness. It is a bracing hour, a sermon stripped of theatricality but those who have ears will hear."
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