Fringe Comedy Reviews: Pippa Evans and Jenny Bede
There are similarities between these two acts: both slim, blonde, pretty. Both terribly nice, well brought up – ‘posh voice, no money,’ as Evans puts it. Both solo performers and musical acts, singing comic songs in their favourite genres (noughties hip-hop vs nineties cheese). Both card-carrying feminists who see no reason to apologise for being female and funny.
Radio 4 stalwart Pippa Evans' show There Are No Guilty Pleasures [★★★★☆] was absolutely stowed out. Not only were the audience packed in, she had to turn about 50 away – good going for an early afternoon free show. Her capacity for accents is astonishing. For instance, over the hour, she had us snorting at Australians, Americans, Geordies and Scots, despite sounding like Stephanie Cole’s deeply jolly-hockeysticks daughter in real life. She talks about the agony of raw food retreats (the most self-harm you can do without blood) and mocks Katie Hopkins to the tune of La Vida Loca. She dons a beanie to parody Ed Sheeran wannabes, and plays three people in a sing-off between a posh woman, a traffic warden and a gender-dubious child. She bounds about smiling at everyone, but perhaps the thing that makes us love her most is the fact that she manages to ignore the woman in the audience with the single most irritating laugh in the world – the risible, front-row equivalent of heckling.
While everyone at Evans' show knew all the tracks she played (Simply Red, Desiree), Jenny Bede’s Don’t Look At Me [★★★☆☆] – a foray into the different subgenres of hip-hop – was a bit of an eye-opener for some of us. Gangsta rap is apparently on its way out, as is braggadocio. Cripes. We also discover that Drake’s songs and Bede's mum’s emails are virtually interchangeable, or that hip-hop songs about arses could be broken down into three core elements: compliments, accusations, and weirdly specific instructions about buttock placement. Bede’s set is a mass of emojis, twerking, irritation at time spent out of pyjamas, and still receiving Vera Wang’s wedding dress emails for a relationship that broke down two years ago. She’s slightly nuts in the way all the best people are, and she has the knack of singing you right into her obsessions to laugh at their ludicrousness.
Pippa Evans: There Are No Guilty Pleasures, Bannermans, until 30 Aug (various dates), 1.45pm, free
Jenny Bede: Don't Look at Me, Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 Aug (various dates), 3.30pm, £7-11