Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

In describing her four-year struggle to have a baby, Casey Balsham warns us that the process has been so all-consuming that this could just end up being a live reading of her diary.

Things haven’t quite reached that point, but she struggles with the storytelling skills to turn her experiences into a funny, compelling hour. The tale of her IVF becomes a series of medical appointments more than an emotional journey for the audience to board.

Punchlines, when they come, tend to be glib, such as her husband enjoying her enlarged boobs, her being on ‘more drugs than Coachella’, or a weak sperm commenting: ‘Swim? I’m more of a lazy river guy…’ They undermine the sincerity of the story for little comic payoff.

Crucially, Balsham offers much revelatory information about the subject, especially some chilling facts about just how much America’s religious right interferes with a woman’s body. Did you know an Alabama woman was charged with manslaughter after losing her baby – after she was shot in the stomach? And the shooter walked free. As the universal right to abortion is withdrawn across the US, fertility treatments may well also fall foul of zealous law-makers.

The comedian’s dislike of the word ‘miscarriage’ is also interesting, and something you possibly never thought of before. Balsham’s right to shine a light on such topics, but turning it into comedy is trickier.

She performs fast and assuredly, not deterred by a minuscule audience of five in a room that probably could take 100. Although dropping the bulletproof confidence so valued on the US comedy circuit might help us connect with her more. And her decision to perform the first ten minutes in a depressing blue half-light in which we could not make out her face was definitely a bad one, as she acknowledged.

Inconceivable is interesting enough, and competently conveyed, but feels underpowered comedically and narratively, although would-be parents who have faced a similar experience might find some comfort in hearing a story similar to their own.

• Casey Balsham: Inconceivable is on at Just the Tonic at The Mash House at 5.05pm

Review date: 19 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at The Mash House