Review by Steve Bennett

In this inconsequential character piece, Helen O’Brien plays the role of Bernard Manning’s fictional widow – but don’t go expecting too much about the of ’fat, sweaty, racist, sexist comedian’. Instead, it’s based on idea that’s familiar in both fact and fiction at the Fringe: somebody not very good at comedy, doing comedy.

The show starts with O’Brien doing a convincing voiceover of a archetypal Northern comic hosting a Rochdale working men’s club. Then on comes Mrs Manning who, it transpires, has been saddled with debt after her husband’s demise so has taken on his future bookings.

She tries some schoolyard puns, but fumbles them, so opens Bernard’s joke book to try some of his material – and is horrified by what she discovers, especially the sexist material aimed at her.

So she tries to forge her own niche in showbusiness, describing some of the advice she got from husband’s old comedy friends, seeking a double-act partner from the audience, and playing a crap gameshow based around mince, which sounds more fun than it is.

This sits alongside fictional stories about the slobby Manning (even this character is a lie as the comic’s real wife, predeceased him by 21 years) as Mrs Manning wishes his poor diet will take him to an early grave. They also aim to illustrate that two opinions are wrong and outdated: racism, and that women can’t do comedy. Sadly, O’Brien – who also has a Pleasance show Bronagh’s Big Weekend –  rather labours this point, rather than just being funny.

She inhabits Mrs Manning well, and there’s a delicate warmth to her; but because the situations are so weak, it doesn’t really matter how strong the character is.

The most fun? Trying to figure out what the two Estonian girls who comprise 40 per cent of the audience in this tiniest of Free Festival venues made of the various references to light entertainment figures from the Seventies and Eighties. They were certainly baffled by the mince game, but that’s almost certainly not an issue of cultural difference.

Review date: 16 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett