Katie Mulgrew: Happily Ever After

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Approaching 30 years old, Lancashire comedian Katie Mulgrew admits that she is anything but ready to grow up. Still engrossed in the world of Disney princesses, she returns to Edinburgh with a show loosely based on the happy endings we have been sold over the years, prescriptive conclusions that have been perpetuated, perhaps dangerously, by Hollywood animation studios.

The hook is as obvious a gimmick as you might find in many other Fringe shows. Mulgrew reimagines the Ariels and Auroras of the celebrated films as sharp-tongued British girls, shoehorns in anecdotes about her honeymoon, spent in Disneyland, and leads us towards the idea that happy endings are actually just stories that have yet to finish. Frustratingly however, she approaches these ideas and then cowers away from them, resorting to cutesier, innocuous comedy based on daft mime routines and one-liners.

Amidst the army of standup comedians that descends on Edinburgh each year, Mulgrew is a safe bet: an experienced, natural and endearing performer. Occasional jokes centred on pressing topics including feminism, pay equity and marriage also show signs of a much greater intellect at work—but instead of perceiving these ideas to be fertile ground for comedy, Mulgrew seems to dismiss them as necessary evils within her show. It’s almost as if she knows how to get laughs and pushes only very lightly on the buttons. Whilst Mulgrew may flourish in this comfort zone, there's a concern that if she stays there, she might never join the ranks of the comedy elite.