Venue: The Counting House
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In a sweltering Counting House room full of punters who can barely handle their booze, Sasha Ellen comes to the stage with the ‘face of somebody who both teaches and goes to primary school’. Perhaps it’s this early mention of authority figures that keeps the audience from misbehaving too badly, but regardless of how she does it, Ellen keeps a tough crowd engaged and laughing.
The show, admittedly, does start off a bit slow, although once Ellen gets onto her main thesis – a dissection of the word ‘creepy’ – it’s clear to see just how well-crafted the set is. While her topics are hardly ground-breaking (something the comedian herself points out during the set), the comedy is from a fresh perspective, and Ellen herself is charming and self-aware in how she delivers her jokes, of which there are plenty.
Ellen moves from topic to topic with verve, opining on everything from her nerdy nature to health issues to the idea of her, as a tiny, blonde, white woman, possessing ‘creepy privilege’. Her self-effacing is never self-pitying, and her understanding (and unwrapping) of her own privilege is part of what makes the show so interesting. Towards the end, Ellen goes off-mic and delves into a story that sounds depressingly like one we’ve been hearing more and more about as women begin to discuss their fears around predatory men, but just as the seriousness threatens to overtake the room, lands a great laugh with a surprising (and well-received) twist.
The show isn’t entirely polished, and there are a few times jokes fall flat, although a lot of that may be to do with a difficult audience looking for an easy punchline instead of the more interesting takes that Ellen offers up. With that said, she moves onto new subjects and jokes quickly, meaning the laughs rapidly reappear in the room. She is able to handle some boring heckling without getting derailed, angry, or kicking the perpetrator out, which itself is a great skill.
Smart, self-possessed, and with great heart without being overly sincere or preachy, Creepy Little Woman is comedy done well. It’s a shame the run is so short in Edinburgh, but there’s no doubt when she takes it around the country, it will get the love it deserves.
Dates: Creepy Little Woman ran at 21.30 on 21st and 22nd August at The Counting House.
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/sasha-ellen-creepy-little-woman
Image: Adrian Tauss