Fern Brady: Male Comedienne

“I told The Stand not to put me on at midday,” says Fern Brady, and she’s got a point. Actually, the first half of her second Edinburgh hour is the sort of show you could just about take your mother to. Just. But things take an extraordinary turn, with a revelation that our host insists her own mum doesn’t know about, yet, followed by audio-visual anarchy. Welcome to the Brady Lunch.

Brady—a 30 year-old writer/comic from Bathgate who comes across on stage like a scary 18-year-old shop assistant, which actually works—has some solid-gold material to work with here, on top of a beautifully brutal turn of phrase. It all feeds into the overall Male Comedienne idea: people not treating her like a regular, stereotypical, stare-at-shoes woman, for some reason.

First there’s a spectacular newspaper error that, if true, is pretty staggering, and elicits that rare audience response, the gasp-then-guffaw. Along the way she tosses away further revelations like tiny fireworks—mental hospitals, memorable threesomes— before we even hit the biggy. All of which allows Brady to take a well-deserved swipe at older male comedians who reckon she hasn’t enough life experience to be a standup. Oh, really?

Act two then brings that eyebrow-raising admission, which I won’t reveal here in case Mum Googles her. But it’s surely unique on this year’s comedy stages, and utterly fascinating. Then there’s the ending, a video-based stunt which will divide audiences, possibly make you cry, and maybe even ruin your day. Ah, modern comedy, such an unpredictable mistress.