Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

‘This whole thing’s a panic attack!’ Helen Bauer’s appraisal of her frenetically anxious show is as honest a description as you could hope for.

Her fourth solo hour is – like its predecessors – a breathless, hyper-intense download, this time offering a list of hangups so comprehensive it could almost serve as a diagnostic manual.

Feverishly offering a messy look into a messy mind, Bauer races through all manner of psychological issues. We open with a recording of some self-help guru – American and evangelical, of course – urging listeners to love themselves and so be capable of love.

But how can anyone love themselves when they’re conscious of every bad thing they’ve done? is how the comedian’s logic runs. Insecurities haunt her every moment – even on the toilet – as she fights generational issues inherited from her mother, toxic female friendship groups, being a secret binge eater, and the compelling desire for a partner. Not necessarily for the usual reasons of companionship, but to bear witness to her always-on performance, and so validate her existence. In the absence of such a bloke, the audience will have to take on the role.

She is disarmingly open about this grab-bag of anxieties, heightened by the alleged on-stage presence of her eight-year-old ‘inner child’ – presumed to be the real 34-year-old Bauer as she was at that age – embarrassed by everything the now-adult comedian does. ‘I hate hanging out with her,’ Bauer says, even though she’s invisible.

For all the professed self-loathing, Bauer’s need to get all this out makes her confident, bordering on the maniacal, about sharing her vulnerabilities, however oxymoronic that sounds. But it’s a potent combination, with the audience invited into her confidence –  ‘gather, gather,’ she sometimes whispers before revealing some indiscretion – then whipped up into the maelstrom. She’ll conspiratorially share something about her life, tagged with an unaffected natural response  like: ’Right? Ew! That’s gross!’ 

It’s a very dense show  – even under-running a bit she packs a lot in – but not a very tidy one, which is very on-brand for her force-of-nature personality. 

There’s no neat ending, for sure. She's doing her darnedest to address some of her emotional baggage, even if it  will require hitherto unknown levels of therapy. 

However, it seems too soon to know for sure, and a physical health predicament – only resolved just days before the festival began – further thwarts any hope of a convenient narrative closure. But if one take-out message is that it’s OK to be messy if you’re working on it, then why shouldn’t the show feel like that too?

There’s hope things will work out for her, and that’s optimism enough. For after just this short time in her company, we’re her friends and confidants now, and we want the best for her.

Review date: 1 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club