JoJo Sutherland @ The Stand

Lunchtime gigs can be as intimidating for the audience as the comedian. Poor attendance at these slots means you run the risk of sitting entirely on your own in front of a depressed comedian.

Fortunately, JoJo Sutherland has pulled in a healthy crowd today and her commanding persona fills the rest of the room. She's led an interesting life: mother of four kids, former participant in Wifeswap and a bizarre sequence of marriages which sound too funny to be true. Now slightly shell-shocked by reaching her forties, she seems not to give a damn about how the audience judge her as she makes fun of her own kids and expresses a fondness for early-morning drinking.

Sutherland touches on a number of subjects that most comedians wouldn’t bother with. A passage on how rubbish she is at managing her bank account is extremely funny, but also observed with the painful honesty of someone who genuinely struggles to make ends meet. It's a subtle catharsis, not overtly confessional, but with a lot more depth than the 'don’t you just hate call centres?' style of comedian. It's all good fun and you won’t find many better ways of spending a lunchtime during the Fringe.