Theatre Review: Pits, Underbelly - Bristo Square, Edinburgh

Aspiring stand-up comedian Mackenzie Hepburn hails from a fictional Geordie toon though her chaotic family life has a ring of anarchic truth

Pits finds humour in fake tan, false lashes and fried food.

Pits, Underbelly - Bristo Square, Edinburgh **

Stoic dad Dave, damaged, racist brother Calum and his dim girlfriend Ellie, plus mum, Audrey, who thinks that smiling at her Syrian neighbours is a breakthrough for community race relations.

Mackenzie spots the comic potential in this familiar universe of fake tan, fake lashes and fried food, where the misplacing of a snakeskin clutch bag is a cultural crisis and the discovery of a tenner you didn’t know you had can instigate love-making.

But what starts out as rote, if riotous, sitcom with the occasional pithy witticism gradually takes on a darker domestic hue and it soon transpires that if Mackenzie didn’t laugh in public she would be crying in private.

Until 26 August

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