Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Liz Guterbock glows with Californian positivity in this stifling Edinburgh cellar, showering the audience with warmth and welcome as she came on.

In a show which challenges the habit of judging women by their looks (like every second show around at the moment) you have to acknowledge her film-star looks, hair shiny like a horse’s mane, saucer blue eyes - and Liz, the headgear was worth it.  Moving on.

This is an autobiographical, taking stock show, glancing over her nerdy, awkward kid childhood and subsequent move to LA, presumably for acting and comedy, where at 30 a budgie-cage cover of invisibility is dropped on you if you don’t maintain the illusion of being a dewy 21-year-old.

So she upped sticks and came to the UK, where she would light up the perceived greyness any day of the year. She can claim a lot of Britishness and has the passport to prove it, while resolutely being not from round here, even after 12 years.

Guterbock gives a polished account of the differences between the UK and US, deploying a range of accent skills – some Brits sounding like the 1940s cut-glass depictions of genteel poverty, She gives a fine lesson in how to sound like a Kardashian with extended mouth, stretched vowels, fur-ball in throat, and mimics how some Made in Chelsea types sound like diluted Kardashians.  There are lots of reality TV references, all fine and entertaining, that would kill in a club set.

With a gear change back to herself, she talks about the difficulty of not coming out to her parents until after a break-up and spends an interesting part of the set explaining how there’s a trend for rainbow-washing capitalism.

It’s all presented with a lightness of touch, polished impressions and heart-on-sleeve emotion around not wanting children, being kind to herself, the cultural value of women and femininity and reclaiming the term ‘hag’ as empowering.  Speaking for myself, I don’t find it much of a boost addressed to me.

Liz has audience wrangling skills, marketable content for people who need a laugh of recognition (all the accent stuff, mums and dads) and she’s au courant with sexual politics and personal growth.  There’s a good comedy set dispersed through the personal, meaningful and very watchable show.

Review date: 11 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Julia Chamberlain
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard