Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

God, why is that title so funny; I can’t think about it without laughing a little bit, much less see the poster. I feel like Lou Taylor’s activated me to giggle, Manchurian Candidate style.

Anyway, Taylor’s debut hour is a lovely, very funny and unapologetically frivolous trawl through what it was like to grow up in the 90s – the TV, the culture, the horrible boys and, of course, the fingering. 

She opens the show with video footage from what she calls the best day of her life – the day she got to be a part of the Live & Kicking studio audience. Special guests: Boyzone! The Spice Girls! And teen dream Michael Buerk describing vivid war atrocities to a group of stunned-looking children.

Taylor analyses her early teenage years through the lens of the present, fondly reminiscing about the absurdities of early phone culture and the conspiratorial excitement of early sexual encounters. There’s some particularly great stuff here about the alternate truth that kids create for themselves through rumour and gossip – the poor teachers who got branded as pedos for wearing a new tie, or the brilliant story she relates about a classmate who allegedly got a handjob on the Oblivion rollercoaster. ‘He came in his own face! Imagine the keyring!’

She breaks up routines with a series of videos, showing herself to be a great writer of sketches as well as a talented comic. Her spoof tampon advert guest starring Lorna Rose Treen and Katie Norris is a brilliant bit of comic filmmaking, beautifully pinpointing the odd visual language that such adverts had to use.

In other hands I’d usually feel a little allergic to a whole hour of 90s nostalgia, so it’s to Taylor’s credit that she’s stacked the decks with anecdotes and observations that work in and out of context. If you’re a woman who grew up in the 90s this will seem like manna from heaven but it works like gangbusters for the rest of us as well.

Taylor  ultimately accessorizes her show with a message, talking about how she wants to be more present in her life, and how she sometimes feels trapped in a no man’s land between childhood and adulthood, but it’s thankfully very lightly worn. 

This show was clearly designed as a fun, feelgood look back at a sillier, more innocent time, and it fulfils that brief to the letter.

Review date: 23 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard