Cabaret review: It’s Not Easy Being Yellow, The Voodoo Rooms (Venue 68A), Edinburgh

By SALLY STOTT
Published on 20/08/2012 12:13

WHILE Ria Lina’s fearless, provocative and very funny one-woman show is listed in the cabaret section of the Fringe programme, there isn’t a comedy venue in the country that shouldn’t be fighting for her.

It’s Not Easy Being Yellow

The Voodoo Rooms

(Venue 68a)

Star rating: * * * *

Like a female Reginald D Hunter – if he had a mother from the Philippines, a father from Germany and played the ukulele – she shatters racial stereotypes by embracing them.

Due to her mixed-race looks (apparently she was told off by someone for using this term who preferred “ethnic blend”), American accent and upbringing in Holland, she finds it time-consuming and annoying to answer the question, “Where do you come from?” – particularly as it is rarely relevant to the conversation.

She mercilessly jokes about her children and family, pointing out that when people see her with her daughter, who has the blonde hair and blue eyes of her father’s family, they think she’s the nanny. She then re-imagines her parents’ marriage using every racial cliché possible – from mail-order brides to the Nazis.

It’s wonderfully on-the-edge stuff that, through stand-up and comic songs, takes full advantage of the fact her father’s country was the home of the Third Reich and her mother’s tends to be associated with housekeepers and women who can shoot ping pong balls from their nether regions. The songs are brilliant pieces of self-contained satire – and clearly Ria didn’t get three degrees by accident (her parents wanted her to be a lawyer) – delivered with the upbeat charm of a modern-day George Formby. Critics have dismissed her ukulele as gimmicky – their comments are also turned into songs – but I have yet to become so jaded. And besides, it’s part of a sunny, smiling demeanour that pretty much allows her to get away with saying anyway.

Through easy patter with the audience, she lists stereotypes about us all, and still we laugh. In a final song she has us singing along before she shouts “let’s have a cheer for all the half-castes”. It could all go so horribly wrong, but like a beaming assassin, she’s invincible.

• Until 26 August. Today 7pm.