Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Bronwyn Sweeney’s Edinburgh debut gets off to a cracking start. She’s full of energy and vim that befits a routine that takes Sisqo’s infectious Thong Song as its starting point.

It’s a fast, sparky performance with plenty of punchlines, setting up running gags such as her sexual obsession with 1990s Italian footballers and showing her flair for audience chit-chat that recurs throughout the hour.

She’s got some brilliant lines – ‘After Beanie Babies, time is our most valuable commodity’ is a doozy – and a fine premise. She’s going to use her decade of experience in advertising to tell people how to build a personal brand, which is so vital in today’s world, especially on the dating apps.

You can see why building a clear identity might be so important for someone with an Irish father, Zimbabwean mother, Welsh name and American accent despite her Blackpool birthplace. (It came from a globetrotting childhood). But as Sweeney gets stuck into the meat of her show, the material and her delivery loses vitality and purpose, and the show becomes another debut of fairly amusing personal anecdotes, with the occasional good line thrown in. It seems like a wasted opportunity to make the sort of all-guns-blazing calling card she seems capable of.

Sweeney’s professional background taught her you need four things for a successful brand: a cool name, a consistent tone of voice, a clearly defined audience and a strong visual identity. 

Routines are thus assigned into one of those four categories as a superficial nod to structure, but it’s soon clear it doesn’t quite stack up. Ironically, it’s because she doesn’t apply those branding principles to her own show, so ultimately don’t quite know what sets her apart in the marketplace.

She’s been dating younger guys, is under pressure from her mum to have grandkids, and, at 37, is no longer interested in wild nights out. There are decent lines in all of this, but what sets any of them out as being a distinctively ‘Bronwyn Sweeney’ routine is much harder to call.

There are fascinating titbits from her former life, including a jaw-droppingly misjudged product Colgate once put out, and a few solid personal stories – such as the lengths to which she went to try to snare one of those Italian footballers she lusted after. But others are thrown away, such as the casual comment that she spent two years faking a British accent when studying in Atlanta.

She still hasn’t found her voice, though more metaphorically this time. Even though she’s good company with some good gags, we only see glimpses of her at her best.

Review date: 23 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard