Comedy review: Cally Beaton: Invisible, Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh

An uplifting tale of moxie and humour, Cally Beaton invests Invisible with jeopardy, highs, lows, feminist resolve and a steady stream of fine, self-deprecating gags, liberally sprinkled like urine on white Icelandic snow.

Cally Beaton: Invisible, Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17)

Cally Beaton: Invisible, Assembly George Square Studios * * * *

For it was just outside Reykjavik that the unfortunate comic suffered her latest car crash, a literal one, leaving her desperately lost and alone in wild weather, her spirit almost broken from being jilted at the airport by her boyfriend just hours earlier.

A running theme in her life, with men dumping her at the most inexplicable moments and in the most unlikely ways, with one Abba-obsessed ex's break-up message hilariously shared, she establishes the adversity of her underdog status. A chubby, ginger child, the solitary girl at an all-boy school, she's now a mother-of-two with an autistic son. As a 50-something as well, she's been made to feel invisible by society and one chauvinist Frenchmen in particular, and calls on the services of Pointless host Richard Osman to mansplain the menopause.

JAY RICHARDSON

Until 26 August

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