Rachel Anderson and Luisa Omielan: All Over Your Face

From the show’s title, I was afraid I was walking into some artificially rude comedy-by-numbers. What a relief to be proven wrong. First act Rachel Anderson, softly spoken and an all-round nice girl, is not a natural at stand-up. A group at the front who seem to think they can do comedy better constantly and irritatingly interrupt throughout her set and unfortunately, she does very little to silence them, instead accidentally egging them on by getting them involved. With her harp-like instrument and pretty voice, she sings a couple of comedy songs, the first of which is a little light on the comedy. The second comes out of nowhere, and is at once shocking, funny, and a little bit heart-wrenching too.

The second half of the show belongs to Luisa Omielan, and she rocks it. Within minutes of arriving on stage, the gobby front row group have been put in their place in the simplest possible way. Not exactly polished, she rambles and meanders and puts on silly voices, but at no point does she lose control. Confessional and anecdotal, she is open about who she is, and to hilarious effect. The only slight let-down is the improvised song at the end – it wasn’t bad, but any Cher impression drags on a little too long.

Refreshing to see two such different acts on one stage, though it felt more like chatting to people you might meet in a bar than a written comedy show.