Brighton Fringe comedy review

The death of her mother may be dark subject for comedy, but Aoife Dunne beams with scintillating light when recounting the stories around it.

She buoys the hour on a sea of positivity, starting with lots of ‘where you from?’ MCing to bind the room simply but effectively, then segueing into stories from her youth in remote West Ireland.

But it was while on a brat girl summer in South America that she received the devastating news that her mother had died at just 53, which hit her brutally hard.

There’s no sugar-coating that impact, and Good Grief is certainly a show of two halves, with poetic, affecting descriptions of the loss she felt and the eventual healing process sitting next to the hilarious stand-up sections that comprise the bulk of the hour. The gear changes out of the serious aspects aren’t especially smooth, but it’s no great detriment.

Dunne always wanted to be an actress, and her command of the stage is absolute – and without any trace of the artificiality that drama-trained performers sometimes have (she was, incidentally, a contemporary of Derry Girl Nicola Coughlan). Indeed, the first time we meet her mother, she’s helping young Aoife battle through pain to take her rightful place as Dorothy in a school production of The Wizard of Oz.

We also get to know that food was mum’s love language – vegetarian in a time and place where that was rare – and of the ‘mad hippies’ she hung out with. It seems like the comic’s only scratching the surface of what manner of woman her mother was, but we’ve got a lot to get through.

The pacey narrative takes us through various anecdotes, from Dunne’s first confession to supporting her brother in an all-Ireland bodybuilding contest, amusing vignettes, if tangential to the story at hand. 

But she doesn’t depend on tag-on stories for the laughs, as she can find the funny in at least some aspects of her loss. The snapshot of rural life evoked during the wake period is delightful, with a hilariously vivid description of a peculiar band of mourners that could have come straight out of Father Ted. And she finds wisdom in the truism that loss is the worst of times but shows the best in people.

It has taken Dunne a long time to get to this place, though. With typical lyricism, she talks about deliberately ‘scooping out the last remnants of joy’ from her life following her mother’s death, considering any vestige of happiness as a betrayal of that loss.

The comic is very frank about being ‘infected by darkness’ in the following years and essentially squandering her life in pointless jobs and a determination to be miserable, even seeking out self-hating sex as an escape – which leads to observations about Irish people not speaking during the act that struck a hard cord with at least one countryman in the room.  It’s testament to Dunne’s openness and affability as a performer that she incorporates this and other audience interactions so easily into her narrative. 

Her story could have sunk into self-pity, but never does. And ultimately turns out uplifting as she finally got herself together – thanks to an ayahuasca trip back in South America which, in the moment , was as awful as all comedian’s stories about such experiences must be, but turned out to be life-changing.

There are many different ways she could have told this story in all its aspects, and there may be niggles about structure and emphasis in this version. But the overarching impression is what a confident, funny presence Dunne is, tackling a complex issue with an assured balance of levity and gravity.

Speaking tenderly about her mum, Dunne concludes that people ‘couldn’t resist her beautiful charm’ – and the apple hasn’t fallen far. The mum who campaigned so vigorously for her daughter to get on the stage would surely be proud to see what she’s doing  on it now.

Review date: 7 May 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton The Joker