Comedy review: An Evening With Rosie Kane - State Bar, Glasgow

Comedians hail from all walks of all life. Rosie Kane may not be the first politician to try their hand at stand-up, or even the first MSP. But she may just be the best.

An Evening With Rosie Kane - State Bar, Glasgow

* * *

Taking to the stage singing Chumbawamba’s socialist anthem Tubthumping, backed on guitar by her brother Big Tam McGarvey, this looked set to be a long night. And so it proved, though an entertaining one.

Kane has no singing voice to speak of, irrespective of her admiration for Lulu.

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Her early childhood reminisces of life in Nitshill were delivered with the breathy excitement of a child, but she settled into her assured storytelling style soon enough.

Her opening tale, of how she came to be dropped on her head as a baby is an endearing anecdote, even if she hasn’t yet contrived a suitably punchy punchline for it.

Regardless, there’s a lightness of touch to her yarn-spinning that can incorporate a side-note of tragedy and still wring earthy laughs from the denouement.

Kane’s tales have a folksy quality and it’s doubtful she could play outside Scotland, so steeped is she in the local patter. But she has a finely tuned observational eye and is very funny on class pretension, even making satirical, topical gags about the bedroom tax.

Less would have been more over a two-hour show, but her delivery and timing is surprisingly polished.

A minor revelation as a comic, it’s to be hoped that she sticks with it.

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