Review by Steve Bennett

Lydia King promises an hour of smut and silliness, which is pretty much what she delivers, probably more the former than the latter in this musical comedy trip through her arid love life.

Flirting, online dating, sex toys – these are the sort of things that inspire her upbeat songs and stand-up, which together paint an amusingly bleak picture of her singlehood. It’s Sex And The City if the city was Grimsby.

Yet even though, by her own evidence, she has little to celebrate, the hour is upbeat. King is likeable, funny and rather glamorous for a modest Fringe venue. She certainly seems to deserve better than the pitiful parade of awful men she seems to get stuck with.

Her jokes, though are as groundbreaking as they are edifying. Which is to say not very much. Much of it is sniggering behind the bikesheds stuff, while her insight extends to pondering: ‘Even Hitler had Eva,’ which every singleton must have thought at one point. And her finale is a profanisaurus of dick euphemisms, a guaranteed crowdpleaser if low on originality.

Yet at her best King – who is also in the sketch duo Kings with Beta Male Adam Blampied – is a witty storyteller using her guitar-based songs to illustrate her yarns; a talent best used here in putting a creepy internet encounter with username Divinity’s Creation to music. It shows she can break out of the unambitious cliche of naughty ideas set to delightful music, even though she slips back into it a little too easily.

Review date: 28 Aug 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly Bristo Square