Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

In many ways this is the most extraordinary show at the Fringe. It’s been nice to see Rosa Garland’s Primal Bog set tongues wagging and pack out the house, given some of the stuff she gets up to.

Firstly, and let’s be clear on this, if you’re in the market for a very funny show and you’re comfortable with the bounds of decency being pushed a bit, don’t read this review and wait until you can see the show. I will be spoiling things that happen, and this is a show best experienced unspoiled. If you’re not sure whether it’ll cross your lines, check out the content warnings on the Fringe site.

So yes, piss is involved. Slime is involved. This is an involved show. Garland spends almost all of it completely naked, and not in a tasteful way. There’s blood, nightmarish worm imagery, tampon strings and a live 'poke and stick’ tattoo every night while we all watch a gorgeous video of Marc Ornstein performing a canoe dance to Lady in Red at the 2014 Adirondack Canoe Symposium.

Because for all the shock value, this is fundamentally a beautiful experience, not necessarily on its surface but deep within the slimy cracks. 

With the aid of some powerful stage direction from Posey Mehta, Garland uses her body to explore queerness and desire in an expressionist fashion. Moment to moment it might not always make sense in a way you can verbalise (more fool me), but the feelings – of not knowing where you are; of being exposed before the world; of your body being used for commerce; of wanting things in a way that people don’t understand – come through clear as a bell.

What’s under-reported about this show is just how funny it is, and rest assured that we would not be having this conversation if it wasn’t funny. Nudity comes a dime a dozen at the Fringe, there’s more to Garland's work than that. Especially for the first section, where she appears as a plodding, northern Gwyneth Paltrow, nude and hawking slime, the laughs come thick and fast. 

In a Q&A with the audience about ‘the product’ her quick wit proves that her absurdist one-liners aren’t just the result of careful writing. ‘How will it change my life?’ someone asks. ‘Some would say it already has,’ she replies gnomically. It’s true that everything she says is funnier because she’s covered in gunge, but that’s her competitive advantage.

It all builds to a purgative climax of genuine ecstasy, eliciting the first standing ovation I’ve seen at a comedy show this year. My advice is to take the poncho kindly provided, sit in the front row and crawl into the muck with her.

Review date: 16 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Assembly Roxy