Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Josie Long, who loves dropping very specific references into her stand-up, took her title from a quote by Italian Communist leader Antonio Gramsci:  'The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.’ He wrote it in the 1930s, amid a rising tide of fascism, so it clearly has absolutely no relevance to today, no siree.

This show is essentially about the steps she’s taking to shield her young children from the brutal realities of this world, while also trying to prepare them for it.

They are also her escape from the turmoil. For while she knows life  would be simpler if she had no moral code ‘in these troubled times’, her political empathy is strong. Filling her children, and herself, with wonder is therefore a much-needed distraction.

This generally takes the form of learning about megafauna, the giant beasts that roamed the Earth at the same time as early humans. These remarkable creatures engender a sense of what infinite possibilities this incredible planet can offer.

However  by evolutionary timescales they started disappearing soon after encountering people, so maybe it’s best not think why that was. Or why a WWF report last year found that average wildlife population sizes have declined 73 per cent in the past 50 years.

In short: it’s not easy to maintain a sense of awe when people keep ruining it, but it’s important to try.

Making full use of the Queen Dome stage – and some of its aisles – the animated Long talks fast and urgently around the subject, further enlivening the delivery with enthusiastic act-outs of a feisty pigeon or a lazily aggressive sloth. As she puts it: ‘I’m 43 and I haven’t time to fuck around.’ Or maybe it’s just the ADHD showing.

There’s certainly a lot to pack in, yet the comic also leaves a little ambiguity around her thesis, allowing audience to take away what they will from the hour. You might not identify too many tight jokes, but all is delivered through a lens of insightful wit.

Big-picture issues are married with more domestic ones, most notably her amicable split from the father of her children, Jonny Donohoe of Johnny & The Baptists and Every Brilliant Thing fame. How to protect the children from any consequences of that – or even the death of their pet hamster – clearly has echoes of the main theme. 

She also talks about the severe concussion she suffered from a bang on the head, which meant most of January was lost to her, the bitter, mirthless laugh new mums develop and her guilt that she’s not as politically active as she thinks she ought to be now she’s a parent. That last one is positively shaming for everyone else lagging behind her vigorous long-term activism, which now extend to radicalising her kids to the hard left.

Despite it all, the packed hour ends, as Long’s shows usually do, on an optimistic note – this time achieved through a delightful visual effect. Maybe there is still hope for that new world struggling to be born.

Review date: 14 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Dome