Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

In typically full-throated song, Michelle Brasier ponders what her legacy will be ‘if I die before my time’ – a terrifyingly real risk given that her family history means she has a 98 per cent of developing cancer.

Well, that might depend on which ‘Michelle Brasier’ future historians google. For while she always thought she had a ‘rare, artisanal’ name, an incident at a local cinema in Australia caused her to reappraise that when she was handed an envelope bearing her name and containing $10.50 in change.

Clearly intended for someone else, it triggered a search for that other Michelle Brasier, as well as prompting the comedian to consider all the possible Sliding Doors variants of herself that might be knocking around parallel universes. 

Is the woman we see on stage the best version she can be?  She celebrates being basic and sees her future as a fun aunt (for which, read ‘drunk’) of the kind that Jennifer Coolidge might play. To be fair, she very much exudes a youthful version of the Hollywood star’s confident, carefree energy. But of all the options, is that the gold-standard Michelle Brasier?

Of course, the only actual way to fill the world with other versions of yourself is to have kids, and Legacy’s about that, too.

Brasier admits that the various strands give the show too much plot – though that’s definitely better than the converse. Is this a mystery, an analysis of her potential both realised and lost, or a contemplation of motherhood? All three, as it happens.

Oh, and there’s also some mischievous cross-generational teasing (her millennial cohort invented the concepts of kindness and tolerance, she asserts tongue-in-cheek), the exciting road-trip story of dashing to get to Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival, and more graphic medical anecdotes than you could hope for (or possibly want).

On paper, maybe this shouldn’t work, but Brasier’s powerhouse personality and jazzy, snazzy, pizzazzy showwomanship blasts thorough the material with such verve, you’ll can’t help but be caught up in the energy. The anecdotes are punctuated with gutsy songs, with her real-life partner Tim Lancaster providing musical accompaniment, making full use of her potent cabaret-star voice.

And while none of the strands explodes into a dramatic revelation, the hugely entertaining hour ends on such a positive and uplifting note, that’s not an issue. If her legacy is to be barnstorming shows like this, Brasier has very little to worry about.

Review date: 21 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Patter House