Write what you know. It’s advice that Lily Phillips (Monkey Barrel, three stars) seems to have taken it to heart. Her latest Edinburgh Fringe show is all about her recent experience of giving birth. Though first of all she has to make it clear that she is not her porn star namesake – if she was she wouldn’t be telling jokes about gynaecologists in a sweaty Scottish basement.
The theme here, also tackled by Sara Pascoe in her latest show, is that motherhood might not always be the most profoundly moving thing that ever happens to a woman. Sometimes it can be painful, unpleasant, embarrassing and maybe even a little bit tedious when labour lasts three days. And things don’t always improve after taking the baby home.
Phillips tells her story with skill and an eye for detail, whether it is charting her rocky IVF journey – so much easier for a man than a woman – or skewering the seen-it-all male consultants. “Birth is barbaric and early motherhood is brutal,” she concludes. Yet she manages to fill the room with laughter even when discussing post-natal depression. On the positive side the experience has at least resulted in Phillips’ best stand-up show yet.
Subject matter doesn’t always have to be directly relatable to be funny. New Yorker Zainab Johnson (Pleasance, four stars) opens Toxically Optimistic with a bang, announcing that she has a gun – not actually on her, I should add – which might be less shocking in the USA than it is in Scotland. But Johnson is clearly not a gung ho trigger happy type and quickly embarks on a lengthy and eloquent story about how she was persuaded to acquire a firearm for her own protection.
But this is not all that Johnson’s show is about. In fact two thirds of the way through she pulls the rug, completely switching direction with a curveball anecdote about befriending an opossum in her yard. And just as you wonder where this is going it all starts to make sense. Johnson is smart, charismatic and full of surprises, but it would be no surprise if she makes the shortlist when the Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees are announced next Wednesday.
Bella Hull (Monkey Barrel, four stars) is a quirky young London-based comedian getting better all the time. Her new show Doctors Hate Her finds Hull breezily working her way through a mix of familiar and unfamiliar topics, On the surface this is a standard break-up tale, but Hull has an appealing offbeat sensibility: “I just got a personal trainer. She’s horrible to me, but it’s what I want. Because my body goal is to get a thicker skin.”
There’s a hint of Fleabag to Hull’s story as she reflects on her messy, newly single life, disturbed my mice in her room and a flatmate having noisy sex next door. She paints an evocative picture of her grandmother that suggests that eccentricity runs in the family and references Samuel Beckett just to remind us that she is well-read. It’s a hugely entertaining show that sometimes feels like a few shorter club sets stitched together, but stick with it for the superb closing pay-off.
(REBECCA NEED MENEAR)
I remember seeing Bristolian stand-up Jessie Nixon (Pleasance, four stars) in a comedy contest a few years ago and was rather dismissive of her, suggesting that with her messed up hair and fast-talking West Country accent she was a little too much like a real-life Vicky Pollard. That certainly isn’t the case now. In her debut show, Don’t Make Me Regret This, Nixon is very much her own person, a bohemian self-educated intellectual with a penchant for poetry and home-made clothes.
Nixon is the kind of person who lives for the moment and doesn’t worry too much about the consequences. When someone contacts her via her DMs she doesn’t block him, she wants to find out more. She is addicted to validation, making comedy the ideal career, and is keen to overshare, but is far too engaging to be overwhelming. Make no mistake, Nixon is destined for greatness. There’s a distinctive talent here and if 2025 isn’t her breakout year it can’t be far away.
It’s a measure of the fact that woman are now a well-established part of the comedy firmament that it was only as I was rounding up this week’s highlights that I realised that my first four choices are all female. It was not that long ago that women on comedy bills were seen as novelty acts, sandwiched between men. But times have changed and I’ll turn the tables and finish with a review of a token bloke.
(Rebecca Need-Menear)
Vittorio Angelone (Monkey Barrel, four stars) is the perfect hybrid of classic stand-up and social media aware newbie. The Irish/Italian has not had much in the way of television exposure but thanks to judicious clips online he has sold out his run here, added extra dates in a larger venue and when he tours in 2026 will be playing the Eventim Apollo.
In you can’t Say Nothing any more (the capitals are a nod to the title of a TV show about Belfast’s history) he delves into his family’s ancestry and reflects on what it must have been like for the Angelones during the Troubles – his great-grandfather, also Vittorio, ran an ice cream cream parlour which was burnt down. It’s a personal story but he turns it into a universal one about finding your identity.
It helps that he is a captivating, assured joker as well as a playfully provocative one, whether chatting about his anxiety as a child, his recent weight loss or wondering if Ireland’s issues could have been resolved by north and south simply renaming itself Gulf of Ireland. Angelone is not afraid to be edgy and maybe it doesn’t always land perfectly, but there is no doubt that he is a comedian with a big future.
Tickets for all shows available at edfringe.com