Edinburgh Fringe review by Steve Bennett

This is not the best atmosphere for comedy. Brodi Snook appears listless and unable to any positive energy back from the sparsely populated room to invigorate her.

But once she found the reserves to power through the subdued mood, she revealed herself to be a sharp comic with an astringent wit and jagged attitude – and with something meaningful to say learned from hard-won personal experience.

‘A handful’ is how one date described her; she’d probably see herself as suffering no fools. Her casual approach to dating verges on the callous, brutally describing a hard-to-shake recent boyfriend as ‘a mercy fuck that outstayed his welcome’. She has several other war stories from her sexual misadventures to share.

But while she can be cutting, dark and caustic, it soon becomes clear that this is something of a defence mechanism. For Snook has the familiar performer psyche of high confidence, low self-esteem, just writ larger than most.  

One of her worries is whether she’s smart enough, especially since she sailed past so many red flags to be stung – and stung hard – by a toxic relationship  defined by gaslighting and power games. 

It deteriorated into full-on harassment, by her account, and the ramifications have yet to be resolved. But it caused her emotional distress and crippling anxiety as she locked herself away from the world. That it was another comedian, whom she does not name, of considerably higher standing and supposed ‘nice guy’ image speaks to all the other abuses of status that dominate the #MeToo landscape

This show is almost – but not quite – her overcoming that; of metaphorically kicking down the door to tell her tormentor ‘you can’t keep me down, bitch’. She’s mentally not yet at that point, and the story is still ongoing, but it’s testament to her openness as a performer that we can read her so well.

Yet the strength she found not to let that bastard grind her down is the same determination that she’s bringing to her comedy, to hit back hard and with a fierce, uncompromising wit. She uses that to conquer her foes both external and internal – taking ownership of all the embarrassing incidents that haunt her by plucking them from a bowl and sharing them with the audience.

Handful shows her to be a comic of compelling attitude, with spark, relevance and disarming directness, who’s on the right road to hitting something creatively impressive.

Review date: 24 Aug 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot