Hannah Gadsby: Woof! review - 'Gadsby is here to remind us of nuance'

Hannah Gadsby: Woof! ★★★★

Underbelly Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 25 August

It’s been nine years since Hannah Gadsby was at the Edinburgh Fringe. Nine years since Nanette – which comics, mostly male, are still bitching about to this day, because of a deliberate twist where Gadsby refused to end the show on a laugh.

Things have changed a lot since then. Gadsby is now world famous, with record breaking Netflix specials. The Aussie comic, who once held audiences rapt with shows about art history, is now one of the most famous faces on the planet.

But Gadsby has changed. Gadsby is now privileged, well known, wealthy and in a far happier place in life.

This new show has a collection of beautifully interwoven narratives about their new life. There has been loss and death, of a family member and a pet. There has been medical intervention. There has been a change of pronouns.

Gadsby has lost none of the lyrical brilliance and comedic lightness of touch they had before. But the person who stands before us is also keen to remind the audience they don’t know all the answers.

Climate change is still threatening to destroy the world, cabbage patch dolls are still piling up in landfill and the internet and social media continue to make everyone crazy. Gadsby, despite their newfound status is still afraid of being cancelled in the future – perhaps because of unacceptable opinions about Taylor Swift.

Gadsby is here to remind us of nuance. They don’t know all the answers, we don’t have all the answers. Life and death are still mysterious.

The person before us is still anxious, they don’t know how to behave in fancy places – and the autistic brain still asks all the wrong questions. We can all still laugh heartily at such things - but there is also a genuine air of confidence in the performance that is deeply reassuring.

Claire Smith

BriTANick: Dummy ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Above) (Venue 33) until 25 August

If Dummy seems to take a while to properly find its feet, that's only because BriTANick have crafted such an intricate, multi-layered sketch narrative that it takes a certain amount of time for all the threads to pull together and for its full manipulation to be revealed. Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher deserve significant plaudits for the ambition they apply to a disappearing artform, one that almost appears to be becoming anachronistically throwback in a Fringe comedy milieu now overwhelmingly dominated by stand-up. And yet they're easy entertainment, utterly free of pretension, aiming for and scoring big belly laughs.

Seeding gags way in advance so they can bear fruit later, the American pair dispense with the fourth wall, play with the input of their tech, audience interaction, video, audio, physical comedy and plenty more besides. Their Chandelier Store skit has a deliberately mannered, old-timey vaudeville quality but hilariously gets overrun by the contemporary conspiracy theorist paranoia about Big Tech that's a recurring aspect of the narrative. Quite often pulling against each other rather than in harmony, Kocher's eccentric sexual predilections and McElhaney's occasionally inexplicable phraseology add particular peculiarity to a show that's conceived to surprise and wrongfoot. The cheek-by-jowl quality of the duo's performances, often with elaborate sound cues, is an escalating delight to behold. And there's extra pleasure in perceiving the input of Australian physical comedy luminaries The Umbilical Brothers, not to mention that of a certain matinee idol, on the action. Definitely an act for the comedy cognoscenti to embrace, we don't have anything quite like this slick but sprawling, inventive sketch act in the UK. And so BriTANick's occasional visits here are to be savoured.

Jay Richardson

Chelsea Birkby: This is Life, Cheeky Cheeky ★★★

Just the Tonic at The Caves (Just Out of the Box) (Venue 88) until 25 August

Running the inspirational gamut from The Cheeky Girls to Albert Camus, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant to the wisdom of Kim Kardashian, Chelsea Birkby's latest show is a cheerfully postmodern exploration of the comic's bipolarity, primarily concerned with reconciling the relationship between her mind and body. The disconnect between the two has brought her to some dark places and multiple therapists. But she introduces it with recourse to throwaway nineties and noughties pap pop like The Vengaboys, a not-so-guilty pleasure that eases her into the day, even if it's not necessarily a great sign for where her head's at. Apparently genuinely enthused by the sexting banality of Adam Levine, frontman of MOR pop-rock plodders Maroon 5, it's sometimes extremely hard to discern when Birkby is being ironic, her unquestionably agile intelligence often channelled into faux-adolescent naivety. Once you can properly attune to that though, there's plenty to admire in This is Life, Cheeky Cheeky, which tackles tricky subject matter in multilayered depths of seriousness. This isn't perhaps the breakout hit that Birkby threatens to produce, it's too inconsistent and occasionally self-absorbed for that. But she's a really distinctive act, with a unique brain and she's clearly wise to its rich comic potential.

Jay Richardson

My Little Phobia ★★★

Greenside & Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 24 August

Emily Markoe is afraid of vomit. It’s not just that she finds it disgusting; it’s a debilitating phobia.

She hasn’t thrown up since she was a kid in America (she can describe in detail the events leading up to that memorable moment), and is now frightened that if she does it again she’ll somehow disintegrate.

Determined to get to the bottom of her emetophobia, she enlists the support of her childhood therapist, Dr My Little Pony (horses can’t vomit, you see), and spends some time going through stuff in the bedroom of the home she grew up in, looking for clues.

We learn a little about the OCD rituals that accompany her phobia, and she brings us close to appreciating the horror of a night of food poisoning. What do you do if you’re terrified of puking but worry that what’s inside you could kill you?

Markoe is a charming and witty performer, playfully making light of her struggles. She sprinkles some examples of her parents’ own anxieties and foibles into the show, which provides a soupcon of insight, but not enough to get our teeth into. For all its fun, this does feel like it belongs more in the theatre than the comedy section, but it’s an enlightening and candid hour.

Ashley Davies