Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Historians are undecided as to when the first self-help book was published. But it was probably one day before the first comedian started mocking it.

For her Fringe debut newish comic Sharon Wanjohi has taken an oldish approach and written her own sarcastic life-improvement manual – allegedly.

However, her version has been given a Gen Z twist, reflecting the reels full of side-hustle tips and crypto get-rich-quick schemes that pack social media now that getting a regular job that pays enough to buy property and fund a decent lifestyle seems a vanishingly unlikely prospect.

In fact there’s a bit of a scrolling-through-TikTok feel to In The House as twentysomething Wanjohi restlessly jumps between fragmented ideas: here’s a jingle for the book, here’s a bit of jokingly under-researched politics about the housing crisis, here’s some slam poetry (not a high point, to be honest).

There are a few biographical snippets among all this, covering her time as a teacher, or dating a drug dealer at 19. Where was the self-help manual telling her not to do that?

Although the book is the doohickey supposedly holding all this together, it’s something of a momentum-killer when she dives into its pages, which may be why she sometimes seems to forget the idea for a while. The advice and affirmations she gives are essentially the opposite of good sense, advocating superstition over science, laziness over hitting the gym at 6am with Diary Of A CEO playing in your AirPods. The overall gag is pretty obvious, but she sells it with charisma.

Wanjohi has a relaxed authority on stage that gives her latitude to be so messy with the structure, certain we’ll stick with her. That attitude also enables her to ask personally intrusive questions of her audience, not necessarily in expectation of a reply, just to make them feel momentarily uneasy for the sport of it. It’s odd, however, that the confidence wasn’t enough to ditch the gimmicks and just talk to us for an hour.

There is, surprisingly, a real message at the end of all her foolishness, encouraging Gen Z to embrace cringe and act freely and recklessly in the moment, as if there weren’t phones everywhere to capture any momentary humiliation. That’s a message as easy to get on board with as the idea of Wanjohi being full of potential, even if this isn’t the most consistent showcase of her talents. 

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