Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Maria Fedulova has a great tale to tell about being the daughter of an active Russian mafioso, but can’t muster the storytelling chops to do it justice.

Indeed, this crucial fact, which gives her debut show its title, only comes into play after 40 minutes and then only used to provide set-ups for glib one-liners. It’s enough to give us a glimpse of her back story but leaves questions unanswered and emotions uninvolved.

She’s an enemy of the state herself, too – but a political one rather than a criminal one, as she tells how her work as a comedian meant she fell foul of the Putin regime. Though again, the details of exactly what happened remain murky.

Now a refugee, she’s exiled in London where she lives in penury in a garage with her boyfriend, also an impoverished comedian, without the means to do much beyond negotiating their endless entanglements with Home Office bureaucracy. 

She greets the miseries of life, partly with stoicism, partly with tart drollery, often following a true statement of fact with a bitter, sarcastic laugh. It’s no surprise that her experience has made her cynical, and the delivery is dry.

But she does humanise the experience of being a refugee, lest you believe the reports that demonise them, being frank about her living conditions and how her dreams are thwarted by her situation, unable even to travel beyond British borders.

The setup-punchline-repeat format of the hour keeps the gag rate high, with the quality mixed from the good to the indifferent. But this comes at the expense of the already weakened narrative. 

Yet I’d like to see more of Fedulova – as much to find out more about that unique but still-unresolved back story as to see how she develops as a comedian with the skills to do it justice.

Review date: 15 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Hoots @ Apex