Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Think of it as a noble sacrifice. Kiri Pritchard-McLean throws away whatever comic momentum she had built up in the first three-quarters of her show for a very earnest, very serious plea for her audiences to try to understand racial injustice and the damaging, lasting legacy of colonialism.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the long-enduring memories of Welsh oppression by the English, she feels this is too important an issue not to raise. White people need to talk about it and the white people who comprise the vast majority of Fringe audiences need to hear it, she argues. Comedians of colour are fed up of always having to do the heavy lifting.

This is a long way from the routine about shopping for jeans and being a plus-sized thirtysomething woman feeling out of place in an achingly hip store that she was sharing just 45 minutes ago…

Her political cry – heartfelt and conveyed with her trademark command of the room – does not naturally emerge from what has gone before. It’s linked via a gag about body image that can’t really bear the load – and is introduced via a primarily factual, rather than comic, segment about how the English forcefully suppressed the Welsh language and culture that will come as a revelation to many.

This segment does have relevance to her wider themes as she is rediscovering her national roots, having returned to live in the remote Anglesey village where she grew up – dealing with all the ghosts of the past that entails. 

Much of the show is a love letter to her homeland. She’s rediscovered a love for the language, sings the praises of the world’s most kick-ass flag and performs in front of a mirror that carries the words Mon Mam Cymru, the historic name for the island that means ‘mother of Wales’. But Pritchard-McLean also acknowledges the downsides of national pride, with some of her compatriots believing she could never be truly Welsh as she spent the first eight months of her life in England.

On the more everyday experiences, she gives relatable material a superior boost with the precise word pictures she conjures up. Shagging’s a constant theme, from sex-education classes to a session with her boyfriend that triggered insecurities about her appearance that you would never have detected in the super-confident woman on stage, resplendent in sparkly swimsuit.

Her final act may ditch the laughs for the message – but Pritchard-McLean is no hollow preacher. She also puts her money where her mouth is, financially supporting another comedian this Fringe and putting her bucket donations toward schemes to help rebalance the festival away from its white, middle-class dominance. How many other shows have such admirable consequences?

• Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Home Truths is on at the Monkey Barrel Comedy Club at 7.05pm

Review date: 24 Aug 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club