American Cougar of Comedy
Live Review

Towards the end of what can be loosely termed her set, self-styled American Cougar Sandra Risser apologises for her rambling incoherence by revealing that she's jet-lagged. Oh, is that it? Because from the darkness of a glum auditorium, it appeared that this wasn't a comedy show at all but that we'd stumbled unwittingly into a group therapy session while an elderly woman was 'sharing' her problems of low self-esteem.

Indeed, at one point Risser does admit that it's great therapy to stand in front of people and talk openly about yourself and that it's something we should all try. That may be greatly cathartic for its practitioner but is it really fair to inflict it on an audience? Can't the likes of Risser seek help in a more conventional fashion... though it seems possible that she had to quit therapy because her counsellor kept heckling her.

At the start of the show, 69-year-old Ritter hands out paper and asks us to contribute questions so she can answer them on stage. It's ironic that providing us with such tiny bits of paper should prove short-sighted, as it's actually long-sightedness that causes this exercise to come undone. When she pulls the questions from a bag, she can barely read them.

Quite a lot of the show was spent with her peering at the slips and shouting random words in a desperate bid to figure out what they said. Once she had deciphered a question, she usually remained baffled because she couldn't understand it. When she was able to grasp a question, she used it as a launching pad for a short reactionary rant... she offered her view that the feminist movement had left women short-changed because men used to pay for everything and now they don't.

After unsuccessfully trying to answer several of these questions, Ritter offered the audience a choice: ‘More questions or material?’

The answer from those who could be bothered to provide one was unanimous... ‘material’. She duly obliged with about two minutes of material before she reached into the bag for the next question.

It speak volumes for the patience of Fringe audiences that this lapse in concentration didn't lead to a mass exodus. Your dutiful reviewer felt obliged to stick it out to the end but it's hard to fathom why anyone else stuck around.