Comedy review: Jessie Cave: Sunrise, The Stand Comedy Club 3&4

This is an exquisite show from one of the more creative minds in comedy today. I do not know if I have the words to do it justice, but it brings to mind a line from a 1985 movie 'she reached in and put a string of lights around my heart', because that is pretty much what this show does.

Cave reveals the devastating emotional significance of Netflix. Picture: Contributed

Jessie Cave: Sunrise, The Stand Comedy Club 3&4 (Venue 12) *****

It is painfully funny, hilariously sad and makes oversharing a thing of comic genius. There is no corner of Jessie’s life into which her blindingly honest comic light does not shine.

Central to the hour is her break-up with Alfie, the father of her two children. Both he and the unnamed 24-year-old who assisted in switching her “sex button” back on, are present on stage in the form of soft furnishings – this is a Jessie Cave show, after all, and imagination and illustration are of the essence. Her reaction to the ending of the relationship with Alfie, her conversations with him, her tiny flurries of frustration and her attempts (failed) to “go girl” and be a power woman are enthralling and the kind of bittersweet funny that is really difficult to do this well.

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The emotional detail is comedy perfection: how many times do you see someone before you are “seeing” them, the commitment level of a box set and the devastating emotional significance of Netflix and Whole Earth Peanut Butter are all balanced on the tragicomic knife-edge she dances along.

Her developing relationship with the 24-year-old, Alfie’s exponentially expanding haul of conquests, an action-packed trip to Paris and the joy of anklets lie alongside some wholly unexpected revelations from her past, a pregnancy scare and some final moments that had the entire room misty-eyed, on a bed of the most perfectly- wrought comedy scripting you will see performed anywhere. The Break-Up Show has been a trope in Edinburgh comedy since Sarah Millican exploded on the scene with the story of her divorce. It has reached its apotheosis in Jessie Cave’s touching, hilarious hour.

• Until 26 August, 2:25pm