Brighton Fringe comedy review

It’s a bit scrappy, but Róisín McCallion’s debut hour establishes her as an exciting comedy prospect – a bright and appealing performer with much to talk about.

Given that this is her calling card – not to mention the cultural landscape we’re in – it’s no surprise that Keeping Up Appearances is largely about identity and perceptions.

In one defining line about the assumptions people make because of her strong Halifax accent, McCallion recalls one arrogant bloke asserting: ‘Pretty girls don’t talk like that’,  triggering a righteous defiance in her that runs through her best material. Her intelligence is also underestimated – though no one hearing this smart material is left in any doubt about the keenness of her mind.

Sexuality is a key strand she keeps returning to, from a youthful fear of ‘looking gay’ to realising that’s exactly what she wants. Indeed, away from stand-up, the 27-year-old performs as the drag king R Graham. Meanwhile, her home town’s complicated relationship with being the birthplace of lesbian pioneer Anne Lister, the woman celebrated in the BBC drama Gentleman Jack, opens up some nuances that are deftly navigated.

And then there’s her mental health. She says she ‘collects disabilities’ of the invisible kind and first came to stand-up as a recovery tool from her eating disorder.

In none of this does she ever feel explicitly like she has a drum to bang, even if the fuel is societal expectations,  she’s opening up engagingly about her life, and that it has a wider political consequence merely a by-product.

Widening out the material, she discusses how she considers Britain a ridiculous country, from bizarre lockdown-induced paranoia that the lefties were coming for the most unlikely of statues, to calling you-know-what ‘the platty jubes’.

However, she quickly runs out of steam when talking about more general issues. The truth is that an hour is something of an over-reach for her. It’s also a shapeless show, a catalogue of thoughts that have come to her in apparently random, rather than having some purpose or structure.

Nonetheless, she does get with what she describes as ‘really lazy’ verbatim comedy, sharing some of the batshit messages from her neighbourhood message group or some of her favourite profiles she encountered on Tinder because they do deserve a wider audience.

But it’s McCallion  herself who is the main product; in the personal experiences and the hugely charismatic presence, underlined by a pleasingly animated delivery. She talks with her hands and instinctively paces and pauses with a rhythm that matches her material, giving it emphasis without distracting from it.

It makes for a hugely watchable performance, with much material worth hearing.

Review date: 29 May 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton The Actors