Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Tatty Macleod made a name for herself online with videos contrasting typical French and English behaviours, and her Fringe debut does not change a winning formula. It is the neighbourhood brasserie of stand-up shows, offering exactly what you expect, done pretty well, but with little room for innovation.

Dressed it a stripy Breton top – but leaving the beret and string of onions behind – this very personable performer leans into every familiar national stereotype, primarily that the French are chic sophisticates, if a bit aloof, and the Brits are binge-drinking slobs, liable to fall asleep face-down in a pizza in the street.

She depicts this well, especially the Gallic lothario approaching a woman in a bar, which she acts out with an elastic physicality, but it’s hardly groundbreaking. Even Americans get some stick, portrayed as - you guessed it - loud, ignorant hicks.

Of course, there’s truth in this, but it’s broad and doesn’t always quite stack up. Which of those precisely elegant Parisians is it that makes the streets around Gare Du Nord smell like an overflowing pissoir? She doesn’t mention that this undermines her narrative, but later she does admit the picture is more complicated, via a great story set in a French restaurant that flips her prejudices upside-down.

Macleod does garnish the sub-Al-Murray, cross-Channel bickering with more interesting routines, however. For instance, she paints a picture of her no-nonsense, immensely practical mum who brought Tatty and the rest of her oddly-named children to raise them Brittany in the first place, despite having no links to the nation. That’s right… the big reveal is that MacLeod is not French after all, but English by birth.
That opens an interesting post-Brexit discussion about national identity not being defined by a mere passport, and the inevitable lament about what we have lost from leaving the EU. At 34, she’s still not quite sure what she is.

As a performer, she’s lively, upbeat natural who builds an easy rapport with the audience, even if constantly asking them if they shared her experiences at times felt like reassurance-seeking filler (‘Anyone here ever…?’) especially as it rarely threw up anything interesting tonight.

Fugue was probably the debut Macleod felt she had to make, giving the TikTok fans what they’ve come to expect and establishing her place as the comic who knows all about French culture. Yet there are a few seeds here - including an unusual and lovely ending devoid of any direct relevance to the rest of the show – that suggest she can go deeper, and certainly more offbeat. Maybe next time. She needs an encore.

Review date: 11 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club