Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Laura Ramoso is a stunningly talented comic performer with squillions of adoring followers on social media, where she’s known for sharp character sketches such as Italian Dad and the three insufferable girls who’ve just got back from Europe and are keen to display just how much of the culture they’ve absorbed.

Mimicry is her greatest strength, developed, one imagines, while growing up all over the world.. She was born in Italy, and, thanks to her mother’s job with the World Health Organisation, lived in Cameroon, China, Azerbaijan and Vietnam, before completing her education in Canada where she absorbed that nation’s distinctive vowels.

The thread running through Frances is what happens when a man who has broken up with his girlfriend contacts her out of the blue after two months. Between unrelated sketches, we return to the couple for a small, and largely unsatisfying, degree of insight into their relationship, and the energetic Ramoso calls upon members of the front row to stand in as confidants, as well as playing both parties and imagining different scenarios.

Personally, I think the Frances and Frank elements are less successful than her other routines, but some of the latter do overrun. Playing with the idea of wanting a short girl’s life is a cute idea with a sinister glint, but she gives it too much time. And there’s a period when she starts quoting passages from films and plays in a way that doesn’t entirely support the show, and seems more for the benefit of any casting directors in town.

They should, and will, snap her up, by the way. She really is a great and committed performer, and doesn’t actually need to rely on doing accents quite as much as she does.

Ramoso’s at her best when combining mimicry with darkness. For instance, her impression of a guy doing an open-mic slot looks at first as if it’ll simply be taking the piss of the ‘So random/what’s that all about?’ schtick, but she takes it into nicely murky territory.

Review date: 15 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Ashley Davies
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard