Edinburgh Fringe comedy reviews: Amy Mason: Behold! | Jena Friedman: Motherf*cker | Adam Riley: Late-night Comedy in the Afternoon | Sharon Wanjohi: In the House | Bee Babylon – Eyjafjallajökull – There and Back Again

Amy Mason: Behold!

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August

★★★★☆

Amy Mason received a surprising package in the post last winter. The box of enormous black, double-ended dildos had her name and address on it but there was no indication of where it came from. Funny? Sinister? Hey, why not both?

Over the course of this intriguing and utterly captivating storytelling hour that’s packed with laughs, she draws us into her obsession with finding out who sent these problematic items, considering whether they were gifted by a certain celebrity. The deliveries kept coming too – all with similarly adult themes.

Meanwhile, a problem with the data on her phone meant she lost not just her contacts but her ability to access the medication she so badly needed to stay on top of her mental health. Mason is bipolar, and was feeling increasingly unhinged; it’s a state of mind she communicates with skill, using precise, hilarious writing and an intensity of delivery that includes the sort of eye contact that might cause discomfort in a different scenario.

The way she leads us down a slightly trippy path in which sanity – ours, hers, some of the people she has interactions with – is doubted, and the ultimate solution to the mystery dovetails nicely with a message about how online communities can be just as valuable as in-person ones, particularly for those of us whose brains aren’t typical.

It’s peppered with relatable, if eccentric, musings on marketplace app Vinted, a glimpse into the way she and her friends communicate compared with Emily Dickinson’s letters, and a meal deal analogy that I will now think of every time I pick a solid, a liquid and a treat.

Mason’s authenticity, in conjunction with her piercing observations, self-knowledge and undeniable instinct for comedy and a great story, make this a compelling, unforgettable and, importantly, thrillingly funny show.

ASHLEY DAVIES

COMEDY

Jena Friedman: Motherf*cker

The Hive at Monkey Barrel (Venue 313) until 24 August

★★★☆☆

After bounding onstage to God Bless the USA, American flags in hand, Jena Friedman quickly disabuses us of any notion that she’s proud, or indeed comfortable, with what’s going on in her home nation.

The rise of fascism, hand-in-hand with Big Tech, looms large as she contemplates how on earth she’s supposed to raise a son during these horrific times.

Peppering her confidently delivered hour with dark jokes (she and her husband nicknamed their foetus “Jeffrey Epstein”) and the sort of satire she’s honed working on late-night American TV shows, she draws parallels between the death of democracy and that of her mother, who died from cancer shortly while Friedman was pregnant.

Vivid descriptions of the post-natal depression that followed a difficult birth, coupled with the agony of bereavement, still feel raw, contrasting with the bullet-proof demeanour she appears to be cultivating. It’s really funny, but it also feels as if she needs more time to heal. I’d love to hear more, too, about her father’s romantic adventures, which have been prolific since he became a widower. Maybe that’s another show entirely.

ASHLEY DAVIES

COMEDY

Adam Riley: Late-night Comedy in the Afternoon

Just the Tonic at The Caves (Venue 88) until 24 August

★★☆☆☆

Adam Riley is fully aware of the difficulty of the task he's set himself, performing bad taste, near-the-knuckle material about subjects such as 9/11 and paedophilia in the afternoon, when audiences likely aren’t loosened up enough for it. He's not the most dynamic stand-up either, delivering his misanthropic routines with a callous, almost deadpan indifference. He can craft a joke and has some success contrasting his respectable, middle-aged appearance with the depravity he evokes. But being bludgeoned with unrelenting bleakness for 45 minutes without any light to accompany the shade is not an experience I could recommend.

JAY RICHARDSON

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COMEDY

Sharon Wanjohi: In the House

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 24 August

★★★☆☆

An in-demand writer, with a live-wire stage presence, Sharon Wanjohi is a comic with big prospects who makes an instant impact. By turns flirtatious and explosive in her crowd work, the fact that she leans so heavily on chatting to the audience in her Fringe debut is indicative of a messy hour that cannot get all of its disparate aspects to gel. Ostensibly, we're all just hanging at her house, with the vibe casual and conversational. Yet at the same time, she's a strident self-help guru, sharing her confused wisdom on life and love from a book she purports to have written.

Elsewhere, the queer British-Kenyan, who grew up black in a predominately white school and embraced Catholicism for a time, shares a personal tale of identity and grief, with the recent loss of a close friend the disclosure she keeps returning to. The segues, the messaging and her persona feel jumbled as Wanjohi lurches from a straightforwardly silly, hilarious act out of a scat-singing jazz singer who's groomed themselves too closely, to her high-status Oprah figure, to her vulnerable self, reflecting on authenticity and the embrace of who she is as an act of emancipation. Despite flashes of brilliance, Wanjohi dazzles only intermittently.

JAY RICHARDSON

COMEDY

Bee Babylon – Eyjafjallajökull – There and Back Again

The Stand Comedy Club 3 & 4 (Venue 12) until 24 August

★★☆☆☆

Nothing to do with the eponymous volcano that erupted so disruptively in 2010, Bee Babylon's gentle storytelling hour is instead based on a 19th century travelogue penned by Scottish nobleman George Steuart Mackenzie. Written at a time when Iceland was all but undiscovered by most of mainland Europe, barely of interest even to squabbling Denmark and Norway, the account betrays Mackenzie's prejudices about “savages” and what he perceived as unchristian behaviour. Most remarkable for the mission's foolhardiness – most of the accompanying marching band perished – a couple of rogue elements and the spread of syphilis add some pep to Icelandic stand-up Babylon's retelling. A pleasant enough listen, it's arguably not compelling enough a tale to base a show upon, with the comic adding only occasional humorous observations.

JAY RICHARDSON

READ MORE: Five Edinburgh Fringe performers on the true life stories behind their shows