Edinburgh Fringe review: Mhairi Black slides into stand-up comedy with ease
Black's walk onto the stage at the university's Appleton Tower with a pint in hand accompanied by Cigarettes and Alcohol by Oasis was a sign she was well versed in comedic timing given the Gallagher brothers had just spent the weekend playing to crowds at Murrayfield.
READ MORE: The Pleasance to reopen after 72 Edinburgh Fringe shows cancelled
I did worry for a second we were going to get an Al Murray 'Pub Landlord' style set but as Black quickly explained, after leaving politics, she simply needed to find another career she could pursue that allowed to day drink and 'talk shite'.
Rest assured she did no such thing for the next hour. Audiences are treated to a stellar performance full of witty quips, as well as side-splitting stories about her getting high in Amsterdam when Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister and ever-so-slightly outlandish policy ideas she's been exchanging with her new gym trainer Andy.
She packs a lot into an hour. At the start, I did briefly think she was jumping from story to story a little too quickly, but it seems she was taking the approach of settling everyone in with a bunch of sharp one-liners before moving onto more detailed and relatable stories about language misunderstandings between the older and younger generations, awkwardly getting recognised during sensitive health appointments, and crude messages on spoiled ballots which lifted the veil on a mysterious aspect of politics – something Black does many times throughout the set.
(Image: NQ) What I was taken aback by was the ease with which she linked jokes together like stand-up comedy was something she'd been doing for years.
While there is a lot crammed in, she seems to have got a real knack for creating threads between stories, and you can't help but admit the performance is pretty seamless. It was nothing like a new comedy set – there were no awkward moments of silence and everything landed. She might have quit the SNP and Westminster, but Black seems to have found a new world she could really shine in.
She mentioned early on that it was a WIP (work in progress) show, what she described as a 'half-baked idea' she wanted to test out. But there is nothing 'half-baked' about it – it's smart, engaging and downright hilarious.
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