Best known for her role as deadpan Eastern-European housekeeper Magda in Jack Dee's sitcom Lead Balloon, Anna Crilly came to comedy after studying performing arts at Middlesex University.

She became a stand-up in the early 2000s, making the finals of the So You Think You're Funny new act competition at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe.

As well as her role in Lead Balloon - which won her a British Comedy Award nomination for best female newcomer in 2008 – she also stars in the BBC children's comedy series, Sorry I've Got No Head.

Crilly is also in a surreal double-act with Katy Wix, originally called Penny Spubb, but now simply Anna And Katy. They have performed at Edinburgh three times, and made a pilot for Radio 2.

Anna And Katy - Fringe 2009
Live Review

Fed up of sketch shows where you know exactly where you stand? In their latest outing, Anna Crilly and Katy Wix have produced some of the most brilliantly absurd scenes on the Fringe – but matched by an almost equal number of moments of head-scratching confusion.

Sometimes both states of brilliant invention and bafflingly obtuse comedy exist even in the same sketch. Take their South Africans, Nigel and Jeff, who prowl the stage with their ridiculously massive arms, trying to look natural. Visually it’s hilarious, while the dialogue, about their supposed ability to fly, is utterly banal.

However, the infectious joy the pair have in grappling with their outsize props – at the expense of remembering their lines – more than compensates for the failings. They are both hugely charismatic performers, as well as distinctly unusual thinkers, with an easy chemistry amid all the false awkwardness of the sketches.

A favourite has to be Crilly’s appallingly misogynistic Northern club comic, unable to disguise his hatred as he hosts the impenetrable game show Box Quiz; or the scene in which the pair of them beat the crap out of a raisin Danish with baseball bats. If there was a reason for that, it escapes me now. In video inserts, they play two Brummies trying to describe TV shows such as the News in the most tangential way – another couple of memorably funny scenes.

Why some of this fragile humour works and some of it doesn’t is a mystery. How is the phrase ‘I am the planet’ suddenly hilarious when delivered with the beautifully twisted pronunciation that defines their delivery, while other moments fall more clumsily?

Inconsistency aside, Anna and Katy are clearly the heirs to Reeves & Mortimer’s crown.

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Anna's delivery was great and her subject matter was a breath of fresh air, a genuine talent.

Laura Maddison, April 2020

Anna is superb in the not-just-for-the-kids SIGNH

Daniel Russell, March 2010

This woman is so funny people from the future comment! She's ace, a fine comedy performer

Okse, November 2007

Brilliant brilliant brilliant. Loved every second

The Penguin, August 2006

Spellbindingly brilliant.

Isy S, July 2006

Agonisingly bad - failed drama student I think

Katrina Mason, July 2006

She's terrible! The dazed persona is dull as ditchwater - she needs better timing, material and maybe just give up "comedy"

Jen White, July 2006

Her material is pretty odd and took me a while to get into as did the rest of the audience but the punch lines are plentyful and brilliant at that, her last 10 minutes far outshone the headline act.

M. Pelmont, July 2006

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