Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Heidi Regan has stood out ever since winning the BBC New Comedy Award in 2017, a justified victory she followed up in 2018 with a debut show which took its main inspiration from analysing shark B-movies, whilst intertwining such observations with occasional stories from her personal life.

There have been three more shows since, where Regan has perhaps seemed a little unsure of whether to focus on her personal life, or just have knockabout fun with similar popular culture themes.

Centring on matters personal led to Regan’s best show yet back in 2022, as she mined considerable humour - via graphs and (slightly presciently) AI chatbots - from her and her partner’s lengthy IVF journey. With 2025’s Jekyll and Heidi, however, writing about her life has led to what is probably her weakest show to date.

In fairness, a high standard had been set. Regan always had her own clear brand of geeky humour and innovative joke craft. There are a few handsome examples here: a joke about Sherlock Holmes ranks amongst the finest in town.

Plenty of ground gets covered. ‘The government is injecting me with menopause!’, Regan is able to exclaim, with factual accuracy, at one point. A big current trend in stand-up is angry comedy about the menopause, so it’s a surprise to hear Regan state how she’s personally finding it to be an ‘utter delight’ to have it medically induced. But her logic is sound enough.

Regan is at pains to argue that this isn’t a sad show; that she’s in a hopeful place now, and that - as a result - this show is also hopeful. That can feel like she’s hoping to alter the prevailing mood just by asserting that it’s true, as she runs us through her endometriosis, surgery, marriage issues and years of failed IVF attempts. At one point the couple’s counselling she and her wife received gets an enthusiastic recommendation.

Not that there isn’t room in this town for comedy that tackles gloomy topics. But the nimble silliness that has marked out much of her best work is in much shorter supply here: one brief joke targets Bridget Jones 4. ‘That was a cheap shot,’ Regan reprimands herself afterwards. Well, if the lines are that fun, could we not have more of them anyway please?

Towards the end, Regan says that this is likely to be her last Fringe show for a while. She’ll be missed, even if more for her whole body of work than this effort. Jekyll and Heidi finally closes a narrative that was left unresolved way back in her 2022 show, although in doing so it also leaves a fresh one wide open, with very little certainty of when her fanbase might get closure on it. But that’s trading structural neatness for honesty, a decision well worth making. Whether discussing the trivial or the deeply personal, you hope she’ll not be absent too long.

Review date: 11 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Mark Muldoon
Reviewed at: PBH's Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth