Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

There are three spectres haunting Liz Guterbock's show. As someone who makes a substantial part of her income from voiceover work, the first and most insidious of these is AI. The stand-up was flattered into becoming a performer by no less a V/O luminary than Futurama and Pinky and the Brain star Maurice LaMarche, who heard something unique in her when she was still an accountant.

But now, with her livelihood under threat from the robots –and like many acts who've sought to become more distinctive – the London-based Californian has been to clown school. There's a problem, though. At a time when the big orange buffoon in the White House is making her embarrassed of her homeland, the intimidating ‘Boss Clown’ teaching her demands that the comic become more aggressively American, take up more space.

Meanwhile, she wants to feel good about herself, be seen as good, but doesn't want a big ego. Can that count for anything in a world where Trump demonstrates that bad actions don't necessarily have consequences?

After 15 years in the UK, Guterbock is avowedly mid-Atlantic. The differences between the two nations and their competing pull upon the comic are the underlying basis of this amusing, culture comparison hour, its strength and its weakness. 

As a structural conceit, there's nothing stronger and she drills into the manners and psychological reasons for the distinctions, finding fresh angles on long-established disparities, making them personal. As a bisexual, she's accustomed to competing desires. Yet British inhibition makes the business of relationships more carefully coded.

Unfortunately, the dialectical nature of the routines means that they also start to acquire a lulling rhythm of compare-and-contrast sameyness, here's the UK version, here's the American etc.

Ironically, and try as she might to keep him out of the show, Trump once again proves the great disruptor, his capricious self-centredness pulling the narrative in more extreme directions. 

Guterbock gently begins to explore a dystopian near-future where women are sidelined by tech bros empowering nerdy men. But she doesn't pull too fiercely on this fascist thread, preferring to limit her concerns to personal impact for the most part. Besides, her down-to-earth Londoner friend Olivia, rendered here in bored, yawling drawl, is at least as big an influence upon her.

Ultimately, Guterbock draws resolve from another former US leader, whose inspirational words about flexibility and toughness mitigated by softness provides a slightly trite ending for a comedy show. Still, it seems a reasonable guiding principle for individuals trying to hold onto their moral compass in these tumultuous times.

Review date: 16 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Southsider