Suzi Ruffell: Let’s Get Ready To Ruffell

Contrived title aside, Suzi Ruffell’s debut hour is an amiable enough introduction to the festival. If you think that introduction seems rather non-committal then that’s because it is. Y’see in principle Ruffell knows exactly what she’s doing here – good delivery and gleeful enthusiasm abound. The material is, for the most part, thoroughly uninspiring though.

There are plenty of worn topics covered with competence here, whether it’s looking for love, fear of spiders or bad breakups, she can mine gentle laughs from them all. None of them offer much of a fresh take though. Her more personal material works better, and stories of coming out to her family are imbued with some amusing insights.

It says a lot that the high point of the show was probably designed purely as filler, in which Ruffell picks a couple from the audience to use in a playground game of love calculator, or something. It’s all a bit daft, but everyone is clearly having a good time. Unfortunately it’s undone by a cringe worthy attempt at a memorable finale. With her comedy career still in its infancy Ruffell is a promising act, and if she can return next year with a more honed set of material then she might be worth recommending.

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