Brighton Fringe comedy review

Heleana and Sophia Blackwell are clearly a joyfully married couple, as much in love now as they were when they first started dating a decade ago.  Unfortunately, comedy is easier to grow from misery than happiness – which means Wife Material ends up more sweet than laugh-out-loud funny.

The Blackwells are agreeable, chilled performers with amusing stories of dating and of their lives before meeting each other. However, the latter part of the show settles, like their relationship, into cosiness as they discuss the likes of flat-hunting, watching Married At First Sight and the correct way to put on a duvet cover, which seems to be the only major flashpoint in their harmonious union. Unlike the bed covering, it’s pretty lightweight stuff.

The show is nicely staged, split between the pair sharing anecdotes together and taking centre stage individually to showcase their talents: Sophia’s poetry and Heleana’s stand-up. It probably goes without saying that they have an affectionate chemistry, but not every couple does.

Heleana is a winsome comic, playing up her unadventurous, unspontaneous persona, a timidity surely born from her characterful mother’s warnings about the dangers of everything. However, the parody Bob Marley song she sings to cover such parental concerns is comedically weak – even if, like everything in this hour, it’s executed with a low-key charm.

Meanwhile, the more easy-going Sophia’s spoken word routines are endearing, but perhaps too earnest for those seeking pure comedy – especially one section about a coercive relationship she had before finding this one. It’s the only small patch of darkness in an otherwise relentlessly optimistic show.

That they are a mixed-race couple is the cause of a few wry lines, but nothing too pointed. Similarly, they bring up, but treat softly, the fact that their union inevitably feels as if it has political undertones for anyone, like them, who grew up under anti-gay Section 28 laws. They would never have dreamed that marriage equality might one day not only be a reality, but so commonplace to almost be unremarkable.

An hour in their affectionate company is warming, and quietly celebratory, if based more on gentle charm than performative oomph or killer jokes.

Review date: 10 May 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett