Grace Mulvey, Assembly Roxy ★★★
Grace Mulvey has been single for five years, she tells us at the top of the show, a matter of some disappointment to her mother back in Dublin. Even moving to London two years ago didn't change her dating status, despite the best efforts of her flatmates. But then, they're lesbians and she's straight, so maybe their advice isn't quite hitting the spot.
Mulvey's debut show, Tall Baby, covers a lot of territory, but fortunately she talks at a million miles an hour: she mentions her previous career in tech, dealing with the British public in a deadend job to pay the bills, her flat being burgled and her over-60s parents suddenly becoming hopeless at everyday tasks. There are darker emotions hinted at here as she talks about her father's dementia and her mother's panic at booking social events.
Mulvey paints vivid pictures of her life, including going on dating apps, what goes on at bottomless brunches, being diagnosed with “foot trauma” and being charged £25 for an eyebrow wax – and “looking like an angry Lego piece” for the privilege.
I saw the show with a quiet audience in, and I suspect Mulvey's candid comedy would really sing with people who are more happy to interact with her. But she has the smarts and some terrific gags, and this is an accomplished debut.
John Tothill, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★
Oh what a title to tease the comedy gods with – Thank God This Lasts Forever, a show in which he talks about a medical mishap. And so it happened that John Tothill had to cancel a bunch of appearances at this Fringe because he was felled by what he thought was food poisoning but was a burst appendix. Thankfully he's now back in the saddle, health restored.
Tothill is a former primary school teacher of the kind you would have loved to have as a kid but not necessarily for you own children, as his working day appears to have revolved around his first G&T rather than expanding young minds, although he regards primary school teaching as “the last haven of the polymaths”. He's not a jokesmith as such but there are some arch lines in the comic's set.
Along the way he talks about rats' orgasms, mice infestations and how he funded his debut show last year by taking part in a trial for an anti-malarial drug. He duly got malaria and perplexed doctors by not responding to drugs, a story that forms the basis of a very good anecdote.
There are diversions for interactions with the audience and ruminations on his family, religion and the Magna Carta, and he even manages a discourse on the Faustian myth and to expound on Socratic principles.Tothill's onstage style is chatty, confessional and gossipy, and this show passes an hour amiably.
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