Comedy review: Laura Lexx: Knee Jerk, Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

Laura Lexx: Knee Jerk, Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14)

As a beneficiary of therapy, Laura Lexx tries to rise above the slanging match of social media-enraged public discourse, to dig into the root causes of all the current polarisation and unpleasantness.

Laura Lexx: Knee Jerk, Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh * * *

As an avowed Green voter, she’s accustomed to being on the losing side, so can affect a dispassionate critique, tracing Brexit back through football tribalism to the entitled playing fields of Eton.

But of course, with her acute eco-anxiety and a number of other mental health issues, she can’t just remain detached. Her mind is almost broken by the rapacious development of Dubai and its decadent, technology-enhanced sport, and the bureaucratic nightmare of being told to live in the moment when she needs to plan her life as a touring comic. Railing against her marginalisation as a female stand-up, she walks back other instances in her life where she’s been isolated and pigeon-holed, pitted against others against her wishes, resisting

the weaponisation of feminism against the trans community. Breaking down the disparity of gender opportunity with recourse to differences between football and netball, it’s perhaps a contrived metaphor too far.

Until 25 August

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