Review of the new Netflix version of the comedian's Edinburgh award-winning show

Has anyone quite so perfectly parodied a personality type – very possibly her own – as Catherine Cohen?

In The Twist Is… She’s Gorgeous, the New York-based comic hilariously exaggerates the battle between insecurity and narcissism, both jacked up on the steroid of social media, that rages in a young woman’s psyche.

The show, which won Cohen the newcomer award at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and has now belatedly arrived on Netflix, has all the hallmarks of an egotistical  stream of conscience as this raucous diva demands audience adulation for her every thought. Is this to fill a hole in her life? You bet…

‘Boys never wanted to kiss me, so now I do comedy,’ she sings in a typically punchy early number, just after a montage of home video showing her always striving to be an entertainer. ‘Boys never wanted to kiss me, I need you to look at me.’  And she has a good voice – for all the jokes about conceitedly considering herself a dancer-choreographer-singer-comedian-model, Cohen is indeed a multi-talented multi-hyphenate.

As an artist, she wants to expose her true feelings, but knows – especially now everyone is their own online brand – how that must be carefully packaged and commoditised. Everyday occurrences cannot be mundane, but have to be life lessons on which she can offer personal insight, however bland, as content to her followers/fans. Despite initial appearances, every silly aside, every gesture, every humblebrag in this roller-coaster hour, is both self-conscious and tightly scripted, however much she effects spontaneity.

Pandemics and war may have shifted the landscape around her, which means the special feels a little bit off the zeitgeist which it hit so perfectly three years ago, But you don’t have to delve too deeply into Instagram or TikTok to witness the same millennial self-absorption she mocks here, but now it’s accompanied by a Ukrainian flag and a crying-face emotion.

The lines between Cohen the real person and Cohen the brash yet neurotic cabaret parody are constantly moving and blurring, which lends the special a compelling, even thrilling, level of uncertainty. She uses her dextrous songwriting skills to set so many issue to jaunty music – hers and other people’s. There’s more than a touch of the Bo Burnham in the way she interrogates real emotions though catchy, tricksy lyrics.

Her self-analysis covers everything from infantilising herself when flirting to how her lack of respect for herself has led her into bed with many an unsuitable man. Her showstopping anti-romance song, about wanting a relationship with someone who ‘doesn't care if I live or die’  beautifully exposes her need to be loved, but phobia about opening up emotionally. It’s a cracking tune, too.

Yet however much she interrogates her own personality, there’s plenty of room to mock the more toxic side of masculinity and the patriarchy, with some deep, layered thoughts behind such apparently flippant observations about romcom cliches or the difficulty in finding clothes to fit.

At one point, she trills arrogantly: ’Oh my God, I guess I am the actual voice of my generation.’ The thing is, she just might be, even if that voice is an irritatingly self-absorbed one. The grey area between mocking this state of mind and genuinely reflecting on its consequences for both her and the wider world is what makes The Twist Is… so intriguing, even now.

• Catherine Cohen: The Twist Is… She’s Gorgeous is on Netflix now

» Review of  The Twist Is… She’s Gorgeous from the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe

Review date: 18 Mar 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett