Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Marjolein Robertson’s stand-up has always had an otherworldly air, drawing on her isolated Shetland roots and an intertwined folksy surrealism.

She continues to play to those themes in this show, O, which draws on the island myth of Sea Mither and her constant battle with the evil Teran, as well as mining the rich seam of sinister comedy born from distrusting outsiders, somewhere between The Wicker Man and The League Of Gentlemen's local shopkeepers.

Robertson’s jet-black sensibilities date from an early age, as she’s long been planning her funeral, which she imagines playing out to a backing track from Megadeath. 

However O – a title that cheekily defies explanation, whatever you might think  – also has a more prosaic story behind it, a serious medical issue that’s affected Robertson’s uterus since puberty, causing life-threatening blood loss every period.

Entangled with this situation is the inadequate, sometimes weird sexual health advice she received from school and from her mother, a woman with an even more delightfully quirky accent than the comedian’s own. 

As the medics stab at various cannon-to-kill-a-fly treatments over the years – summarised in an inappropriately jaunty take on a kids’ song – it becomes increasingly clear that no one knows what causes her condition or how to treat it. A post-show Google reveals the medical establishment don’t even know how prevalent it is.

Implicit in all this is an institutional sexism, with little concern paid to a ‘women’s problem’ – especially when it doesn’t affect mums or would-be mums. Robertson rightly lets her passion rise when recalling all the pain she has endured, never really being taken seriously by doctors

But this is just one element of this compelling piece of storytelling, probably the tightest-written show Robertson has presented. It starts with an (over)ambitious bit of illustrative performance art then spans   ancient mythology to modern societal misogyny, taking in a troubling bit of kids’ TV, the unsentimental realities of farm life and the crushing pressure put on teenagers.

It’s an ambitious scope, but Robertson puts together a mature work more-or-less seamlessly, whipping from serious point to silly, tension-releasing joke with skill, especially at the narrative’s bleakest point. It seems an important show, as well as a funny and engrossing one.

Review date: 2 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive)