Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It’s early in the Fringe, and parts of Micky Overman’s show remain rough around the edges. She fluffs a few routines and confesses to skipping a couple of segments  which the audience would otherwise have remained unaware of. Even in completed sections, some of her trains of thought don’t quite reach their final destination.

Yet none of this really matters - indeed, it feeds into the Dutch comic’s irresistibly loose and lively performance. Her eyes sparkle with eager playfulness and her vivacious delight at being on stage makes her excellent company. Owning her snafus only adds to the hilarity.

Besides, there are plenty more polished sections that prove Overman’s prowess, and we feel in safe hands. In one of Edinburgh’s skankiest nightclubs she delivers some top-notch lines that wouldn’t be out of place in an A-lister’s Netflix special.

Despite being so infectiously cheery, there’s a grit of cynicism in some of her gags. Not bitterness, just a knowledge that some things are rubbish and you need to laugh them off. And while there’s much truth in her ideas, she has amusingly shaky confidence in them. If she did harbour any ambitious to be a profound, tell-it-like-it-is comedian-preacher, they are undermined by the fact she’s an idiot and knows it.

An early burst of self-deprecation sets out her status, yet she takes proud ownership of the brickbats thrown her way. When one romantic interest rebuffs her advances with ‘I respect you too much,’ it spawns a hilarious deconstruction of the notion of respect.

She cracks gags about inter-generational mores and has plenty of pops at the patriarchy. Inarguable points, wittily made, include a wry comment on how it is predominantly men who fear the encroaching march of artificial intelligence, or how vastly different the notion of going ‘off grid’ is between the sexes.

In her personal life, she’s hit 30 and started to ponder questions of marriage and children. She quite fancies a baby, but motherhood itself sounds truly awful. And when well-meaning relatives ask if she and her long-term boyfriend are thinking of children, she gives it a twist of intonation that makes it hilariously sinister. 

It’s part of her savvily disarming delivery. At one point, she repeats and repeats a simple phrase with an amusingly off-kilter syntax with perfect pacing so that each utterance brings laughs anew. She seems to struggle with self-indulgence as to whether to move on or remain in this loop of silliness. It’s childish but hugely effective, typical of this hour of straightforward stand-up, with no grand themes or takeaway thoughts. Simply some great material delivered by a winning personality.

• Micky Overman: The Precipice is on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive) at 6.10pm

Review date: 3 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive)