Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Alice Cockayne’s demented character showcase is late-night Fringe at its prime, featuring a menagerie of freakish yet strangely recognisable alter-egos, all of which the comic inhabits with utter conviction.

Every grotesque is unnaturally obsessed with something unexpected – casseroles, for instance – and all boast the most outlandish fake comedy breasts since Kenny Everett to underline their absurdity… as if that needed emphasising.

We start at the Girls4U escort agency, based in the Secrets sex club, where the manager is fielding calls from would-be clients making their kinky requests. In this context, Cockayne saying something as everyday as ‘enable cookies’ is strangely hilarious, a sharply unexpected invasion of the mundane into the show’s twisted alternative reality. 

The characters are all car-crash compelling, the audience never sure quite what will come out of their mouths. Describing the scenes will make little sense on paper. Indeed, a lot didn’t make sense in the room, either, but Cockayne’s confidence and commitment instil a trust that her alter-egos will be funny, which pays off.

Her creations’ every musing throws a glancing light on their weirdness, with the monologues scattered with real jokes beyond the oddness and non-sequiturs that abound. The sex workers’ madame, for example, telling would-be johns that all her girls are ‘absolutely riddled… with neurodiversity’.

Later, a woman of indeterminate East European origin, dressed in a fishing net and with seashells in her hair, sings the praises of her beloved acrylic nails. Penelope Jane Pendlewitch places her whole value in being a mother, so is keen to procreate as much as possible. The cleaner is a desperately frustrated would-be dancer, fighting off impure thoughts as she runs her duster around the place, craving to be the centre of attention.

We end back at Secrets, where an awful, wasted punter spouts vague ’male feminist’ ideas with intensity but little coherence as he tries to chat up a sex worker, a scene that is as awful and as painfully funny as it sounds.

The Pleasance Bunker – a venue with a suitably underground vibe – is decked out with wigs to represent other characters, part of Cockayne’s careful attention to visual aspects that contribute to making her creations so memorable.  

Licensed. Professional. Trained. Qualified is directed by Jonathan Oldfield, who also works with Joe Kent-Walters and his partner Lorna Rose Treen – so if you enjoy them (as you rightly should), Cockayne should be right up your dark, seedy, alley.

• Chortle’s coverage of sketch and multi-character acts at the Edinburgh Fringe is supported by (but not influenced by) the Seven Dials Playhouse. Read more 

Review date: 4 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard