Abi Roberts: Twerk in Progress @ Voodoo Rooms

Abi Roberts' Twerk in Progress is a lazy show, one defined by clichés and riddled by cheap cultural commentary. This is a fully finished show but it could very easily be mistaken for a work in progress, not only because of the title but because Roberts’s hour fails to deliver any cohesive message. It is chock-full of middle-of-the-road observations on pop culture and claims of sexual conquests, which all sit uncomfortably alongside her stories of growing up and going out with posh personalities, and how her apparently outsized personality was just too much for that scene. She declares in the first ten minutes of the show: “I’m not a conventional person.” If only it were true. Every gripe and issue and moan I had heard before – and delivered with punchier panache.

Anyone care to take the piss out of freestyle jazz and lefty pretentions? Or how about we deconstruct Robin Thicke and the year-old controversy of Blurred Lines? Or why not muse about how being older allows you to do away with contrived pretentions such as liking The Smiths?

“It’s fucking amazing being in my head,” she declares three quarters of the way through the show. I suppose it’s just a cavern of jokes that she’s been sitting on for years that she’s finally allowed to talk about now. Why do some comedians feel like they can waste a platform like the Fringe to hash out dated material? Or to make a shallow declaration like: “I suppose we’re all just twerking through life?” Are we? Are we really?

Abi Roberts is likely the kind of person who can keep a rapt audience at a party with tales of her debauchery and fish-out-of-water anecdotes – but a comedian that does not make.