Comedy review: Dana Alexander: In Transit, Brel, Glasgow

ALTHOUGH a relative newcomer to the UK stand-up circuit, Canadian Dana Alexander has settled in impressively.

This early preview of her second Edinburgh Fringe show, a mix of new material with the tried and tested, reveals that she’s still measuring her anecdotes and testing her gags against British sensibilities. But she has inherently funny bones.

She’s always been something of an outsider, so tall as a girl that strangers mistook her father for her boyfriend; a black woman of Jamaican descent from the overwhelmingly white Edmonton, Alberta; and a female comic in the northern wilds of Canada, performing in remote outposts where women are rarely seen from month to month. With 12 years of experience behind the mic, the 30-year-old is perhaps sarcastically jaded beyond her years.

But it’s delicious hearing her hold forth on the Tottenham riots, or the necessity of subjecting children to the full brutality of the Grimm brothers’ fairytales.

Assured on the ongoing battle of the sexes, she perhaps places too much store in her “dick” material, though for the most part, she’s refreshingly plain-speaking about sex itself.

In not so multi-cultural Glasgow, her routine on her Italian ex-boyfriend and his momma goes down better than edgier, if more stereotypical thoughts on dating a Chinaman. But she rarely opts for the obvious observation and crowns her best routines with great lines and a sardonic laugh.

A little more acclimatisation and she’ll be a considerable force to be reckoned with.

Rating: ***

JAY RICHARDSON