Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Kate Owens: Cooking with Kathryn | Katie Boyle: Roe v. Wade versus Katie | Diona Doherty: Get Your Pink Back! | Liam Tulley: Baldilocks | Stuart McPherson: Crisps and a Lie Down
Kate Owens puts herself through the wringer spectacularly in culinary character comedy Cooking with Kathryn, while Katie Boyle’s very personal show about abortion is hilarious and right on the nose
COMEDY
Kate Owens: Cooking with Kathryn ★★★★
Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61) until 24 August
Well, what an adorable and delightfully unhinged Fringe introduction this is. In a church basement, somewhere in the American Deep South, the beaming, absurdly over-dressed Kathryn hosts a folksy community cooking show, aspiring to nourish bodies and souls with equal devotion. Yet despite having inherited the role from her intimidating, recently passed mother and a long line of Kathryns born to this spiritual calling, Kate Owens' pathetically hilarious character is spectacularly ill-equipped.
Sipping grimly from her “water” bottle as she wounds herself and messily botches her mother's recipes, Kathryn desperately strives to retain her dignity under the watchful eye of her pastor and studio audience, her eyes and rictus smile twitching with the ill-concealed effort. Spying her new beau, she devotes the fast-tanking production to the sanctity of Christian love and marriage, allowing herself to be overcome by her demented trad wife longings.
Putting herself through all sorts of humiliations, her make-up ultimately a smear of clownish horror, Owens really endears Kathryn to you, as the secrets and lies, repressions and guilt, stifled sexuality and oppressive mommy issues come gushing out of her like exorcised demons. Despite the physically demanding performance, Owens maintains control in guiding her volunteers through their parts. Blessedly, she (seemingly unknowingly) picked clown comic Luke Rollason out the afternoon I saw it and he was generous with his performance as her intended without overplaying his role.
Incorporating live music and shadow puppetry, increasingly theatrical and unexpected surprises possess the show as it rushes to its climax and you'll be right there, rooting for Kathryn as she experiences her revelatory awakening. Owens is fearless in the lengths she drives herself to in order to get laughs and deserves considerable respect and acclaim for pushing herself so forcefully through the wringer.
JAY RICHARDSON
COMEDY
Katie Boyle: Roe v. Wade versus Katie ★★★★
Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Tron) (Venue 51) until 24 August
Here's some stand-up to sink your teeth into and truly savour, knotty, issue-based comedy delivered with aggressive wit and flair but with insouciance for the consequences.
Kildare native Katie Boyle is one of the recent, small but appreciable number of Irish acts who've essentially bypassed the UK circuit and established themselves in New York. Dividing her time between her homeland and the US, she's had personal experience of a historically hot button topic in both nations: abortion. In a liberal safe space like the Edinburgh Fringe, it's perhaps difficult to fully appreciate the strength of feeling about terminations in the conservative American heartlands. But Boyle vividly presents and skewers the attitudes of her ex-boyfriend's Republican-voting family, their wariness about her status as an immigrant enough to keep her anxiously on her toes.
Boyle isn't one to mince her words where fools are concerned, relating disappointing and bizarre sexual encounters she's had with incredulous scrutiny. Yet she can be wryly reflective when it comes to damning her own mother, from whom she's been estranged for the better part of two decades. Eventually settled in a loving, if imperfectly transatlantic relationship with an old flame, the comic's account of negotiating the forestalling of her pregnancy is very funny, beautifully observed of broader cultural perspectives.
Even so, the psychological import of Boyle's decision not to keep a baby was as nothing to the reaction to her talking about it. And it's here that she shows herself a particularly keen and insightful social commentator. Wrapping the hour up a little messily, rather too long in the conclusion, Boyle nevertheless stuffs it with so much impassioned, caustic humour and unabashed personal disclosure that you're never once in danger of feeling short-changed, with plenty of rich details to keep tongues wagging.
JAY RICHARDSON
COMEDY
Diona Doherty: Get Your Pink Back! ★★★
Monkey Barrel 2 (Venue 515) until 24 August
“It’s always Friday night in here”, hollers effervescent Northern Irish standup Diona Doherty at the start of her early afternoon show, taking to the stage to banging club music. It’s a suitable opening for a show that’s turbo-charged by her limitless energy and positivity, elevating the sometimes superficial material.
The ‘get your pink back’ slogan of the title concerns a fact gleaned from a natural history documentary – namely that when flamingos have offspring, the rigours of parenthood drain them of the nutrients that give them their striking colour, the pink only returning when their demanding offspring grow up.
That’s the position Dohery found herself in after giving birth to two IVF babies, and her hour is structured around a series of mantras of the kind beloved by mummy bloggers urging their readers to ‘reconnect with old friends’, ‘rebuild your confidence’ and ‘take your body back’.
It’s all merely an excuse for a series of amusing tangents giving a whistle-stop tour of her life; from childhood to parenthood, via university and a sojourn into her experiences as a contestant on reality television show ‘Britain & Ireland’s Next Top Model’. The latter feels ripe for a show of its own, but just as things start getting interesting she’s once again jumped onto the next topic.
DAVID HEPBURN
COMEDY
Liam Tulley: Baldilocks ★★★
Just the Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288) until 24 August
Deadpan and downbeat, Liam Tulley nevertheless consistently amuses with his bleak perspective and default misanthropy. Impassively, he despairs at the jobs he's had, his myriad health conditions and negotiating online dating as a bald man. A former care worker, who, fortunately, made a big mistake without consequences, but also grew accustomed to death, Tulley is not someone who radiates joie de vivre. Anxiety has led to a series of other, comically debilitating, self-perpetuating conditions for him that he sadly relates in depth, his knackered body conspiring against him and affording him a weary fatalism.
When he tells you about signing up to dating apps, you already know he's a lamb to the slaughter of judgement. And so it proves, his feelings blithely crushed by human insensitivity and the brutal, Darwinian analysis of the algorithms. His material about intimate medical examinations never strays too far from the humiliating template laid down by countless middle-aged, male comics. Yet when he unexpectedly, finally, has some romantic success, snatching a score draw from defeat, he's on a more equal footing with his partner. And the relatable details of nature finding a way and a memorable, recurring visual image ensure that this solid debut ends surprisingly uplifting.
JAY RICHARDSON
COMEDY
Stuart McPherson: Crisps and a Lie Down ★★★
CabVol 1 at Monkey Barrel (Venue 338) until 24 August
Somewhere in the middle of this enjoyable hour, Stuart McPherson says: “I’m neurotypical – for my sins,” joking that he’s making his Fringe show all about that this year. But don’t worry: this doesn’t mean you’ll be spending an hour in the company of a reactionary stand-up. Far from it.
Crisps and a Lie Down a well-crafted and thoughtfully witty look at the world of a 32-year-old man who’s in a happy relationship and is considering whether to have a child. Rather than thrashing out the pros and cons of parenthood, or delving too deeply into what family means to him, he gives us enough cleverly chosen splashes of insight into his own background to deliver lots of relatable laughs.
From poking fun at mental health support in the 1990s and his dad’s attempt to deliver The Talk, to a beautiful simile about how much his family needs a fresh generation, he acknowledges potentially difficult subjects in an undemanding, understated manner before moving on to the next joke.
Contrasting his approach to life with that of his more optimistic-sounding girlfriend provides further fun material, as does detail about their relationship with their dog.
Over the years McPherson’s proven himself to be a solid stand-up whose approach to the craft is quite traditional, so it’s interesting to see some playful new elements incorporated into this show. One hopes we’ll get to witness further steps out of that comfort zone – not just on stage but domestically too.
ASHLEY DAVIES
Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.