Tour review

On turning 40, Sophie McCartney decamped to Magaluf with all her gal pals, aiming to recreate the hedonism of their youth. But although the party spirit was strong, it turns out they would much rather sit around slugging cocktails and sharing frustrations with their family and the travails of aging.

So, too, is it with One Foot In The Rave, a show which mirrors the trajectory of that holiday – or, indeed, life in general. We start in the club with a montage of 1990s floor-fillers, waving glowsticks and donning the light-up novelty spectacles provided. But by the end McCartney’s talking  peri-menopause and how her body doesn’t always  work like it used to.

The plastic tat is both a sustainability nightmare and hugely annoying as the glasses’ blue LEDs start flashing throughout the room. It’s like watching comedy at a crime scene, at least until everyone gets bored with it and puts them away.

McCartney describes herself as 'too old to to be young, too young to be old’ – a familiar place for stand-ups to find themselves, especially as most truly get into their stride at this transformative age.

The Liverpudlian’s material is highly observational, and instantly relatable to those of a similar vintage. She only has to mention Wild Dog 20/20, Freed From Desire or Eurotrash to get supportive murmurs of nostalgic recognition… and to be frank, she often doesn’t go beyond these straightforward reference points. Such routines have the resonance and superficiality of Peter Kay’s material – but even if you might hope for more depth – and I do – you can’t deny the popularity of that familiar brand of ‘remembering things’ stand-up.

Similarly, as she speaks of advancing into middle-age, her talk is full of references to Spanx, Tena Lady and Gaviscon, the usual go-tos.

She does touch upon deeper issues, from whether women really can have it all, the downsides of Viagra or the difficulty of teaching her tweenage son about Consent without making sex sound clinical, and in these moments her vivacious conversational style is surely more effective than any earnest hand-wringing. 

For even if the material is patchy, her gregarious, unfiltered persona is appealing, making the set like the gossipy girls’ night out she describes, a vibe which so many comedians strive in vain to recreate.

She sometimes transcends the generic, however. The routine about a salmon-sperm facial is hilarious, and the whole show is peppered with catchy phrases such as ‘dishwasher dick’  that are engineered to be come part of the in-jokes shared by the friendship groups who come to this gig together.

Indeed, One Foot In The Rave is very much a show for women of a similar age, as McCartney has nailed describing their shared experience.  The flip side is that if you don’t fit the demographic, it might leave you cold. However, it could easily be argued that male comics have played to their tribe for long enough, it’s time for some payback.

In a similar vein, she has a few pops at both her husband and blokes in general, especially a routine about the sort of men men who say a kick in the bollocks is as bad as  childbirth – although whether anyone would really dare make such a comparison, or whether this is a straw man routine, is moot.

But if you are at a similar stage of life to McCartney, she will reflect your experiences back to you with an honesty and an eye-rolling jollity that will resonate. 

• Sophie McCartney: One Foot In The Rave is on tour until October. Dates

Review date: 13 Mar 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: The Bill Murray