Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Every comedian needs something to make them stand out, and in Natalie Perlin’s case, God has taken her prayers very literally. As her title demonstrates, this New York-based comic has made an asset of her assets, not just in the marketing but in wearing a plunging, slit-to-the-thigh frock on stage  – and basing 95 per cent of her set on her boobs and what adventures they’ve led her to.

Speaking with a girlish Betty Boop voice, Perlin emits an innocent, unconfident giggle after every candid confession. She admits to low self-esteem offstage, which manifests itself in her act with a plethora of hesitant filler words in sentences that can contain up to a dozen ‘likes’. All very vulnerable and faux-innocent, in contrast to the decidedly adult nature of the content.

She opens up about daddy issues, about the dodgy maths tutor who molested her as a child (which left her entirely untraumatised), about giving hand jobs at Jewish camp while a schoolgirl, and being slut-shamed. It all led her to learn that she could commodify her body, and she reveals she has a very lucrative side-hustle catering for some quite specific kinks on OnlyFans. It’s frank, dirty comedy from a female perspective, as eye-opening as it is funny.

Perlin has some proper jokes to go with this candour, although she also occasionally slips into self-psychoanalysis mode, explaining why she is how she is. The last section gets a bit weird, mind, starting with some iconoclastic takedowns of Anne Frank for being an attention-seeker (the very opposite, I’d say) who dominates all the Holocaust stories. It’s not especially original to make bad-taste jokes about the tragic schoolgirl, but hearing from a woman gives it some twist. You’ve heard of edgelords, now meet the first edgelady.

This routine prefaces a long  flight of fantasy about how she could go back in time and use her sexual allure to smother Hitler as he came to power -  a silly fiction in contrast to the straight-talking honest that defined the rest of the set. It’s hard to buy into and quickly loses any momentum.

Regardless, Perlin is a distinctive comic with extraordinary experiences and an ear for a witty - sometimes dumb and often politically incorrect - joke to illustrate them.

Review date: 10 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: TheSpace @ Symposium Hall