Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Unpopular and bullied at high school, Salvadoran-British comedian Katie Green missed out on her quinceañera, the coming-of-age party Latina girls traditionally have at 15.

So at 30 she decided to have a ‘doble’ version, making up for the lost opportunity and offering her the chance to reflect on how far she’s come in 15 years. Which also happens to be a very useful framework for a ‘getting-to-know-me’ Fringe debut.

As a teenager she was something of a weird outsider, prone to writing melodramatic drama-queen statements in her school yearbook. Now, she can look back at her teenage self and her performative, goth-lite ‘tortured soul’ shtick with an incisive self-deprecating wit that seems empowering now she has more confidence about who she is.

Not only can she compare her teenage self with who she is now, she can also play both sides of her heritage against each other. Cue plenty of jokes about how each culture lives up to their stereotypes, contrasting, for instance, how non-confrontational British break-ups are compared to red-blooded Latino ones. Brits, she’s found, are also bad at foreplay and avoid intimacy, two facts which may be linked.

She grew up in California, studied acting at UCLA and dated a basketball player, a comedian and a would-be freestyle rapper. Her impersonation of the latter is one of the highlights of the hour, hammering home the genre’s most irritating traits. And the story of filming a low-budget music video with him becomes hilarious when we see the finished product.

Green also introduces us to members of her family, but overwhelmingly ¡Ay Mija! – a common term of endearment meaning ‘my daughter’ – is all about her. The assuredness she’s discovered as an adult makes her happy to fess up to her quirks and mistakes and ensures this is an engaging debut hour from a goofily entertaining comic.

Review date: 15 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard