Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Sian Davies is feeling her age. She’s just broken her ankle for the third time, has developed a preference for ready salted crisps and has become a mix of all the hosts of The Great British Bake Off in one.

She is hugely likeable as a performer, winning an instant rapport with the audience. In the first half of About Time we get some choice stories from her younger days, most through pub hijinks with her mates and a 4am visit to Asda that plays out with hilarious detail.

Growing up working class and queer in Liverpool form a large part of her identity, and she makes sharp political points – not least about the inclusiveness or otherwise of the Fringe – alongside some strong one-liners that elicit big laughs. 

In time, we get to the substance of the show, told through Davies’ gap year in 2010, and her journey from self-declared dickhead to a mature adult. An overly long sequence about coping with squat toilets in India then takes a more interesting turn with a neat callback to a much earlier routine, before life gets in the way of her travel plans.

Without giving too much away, trauma and tragedy loom large in About Time, and Davies’ shifts in tone are jarring. The problem is the gulf between her tightly crafted observational comedy with plenty of retro references, and serious polemicist on a mission to change the world, with no shades of grey in-between.

At one stage, Davies delivers a heartfelt and quietly devastating analysis of how the NHS and welfare state feel designed to cause maximum confusion and discrimination in your hour of need, stopping the laughter and stunning the audience into silence. Ultimately it’s an uneven hour, but there are great strengths in both the serious and silly material in their own way.

• Sian Davies: About Time is on at Gilded Balloon Teviot at 5.40pm.

Review date: 22 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Matt Carwardine-Palmer
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot