Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

‘Poor little rich girl’ is what someone called Sophie Garrad in a Pizza Express once, and her hackles have been raised ever since. 

Yet it would be hard for an impartial observer not to come to the same conclusion, at least based on her shallow stage persona of a wealthy woman obsessed with being hot and thin and young while expressing nothing but disgust and contempt for the lower orders.

It’s supposed to be ironic, of course, but there is a nagging discomfort about a relatively privileged arts festival audience laughing at sneers levelled at the povvos. Call it the Al Murray effect, when you’re not always sure everyone in the room has agreed who the butt of the joke is.

There is a subtext that the supercilious attitude comes from an emotionally distant childhood, brought up by nannies, that probably didn’t teach her to be especially empathetic. 

Garrad’s keen to stress she just ‘doesn’t do deep’ yet that would help her. Especially given this show comes in the wake of Olga Koch’s similar-but-sharper Comes From Money show last year.

But perhaps she doesn’t need to offer more, Garrad is already internet famous, to an extent, with 70 million views for her  ‘private school mum’ and ‘London girlies’ online sketches, and it’s that audience she’s playing to. At the top of the hour she gushes: ‘All the girlies in! Amazing! Adorable!’ as she gathers her tribe.  

She’s so at home with this Made In Chelsea shtick, it comes as a surprise to learn she wasn’t born this way. Garrad is from a Northern working-class family made good, and is apparently the only one in her family to talk with the upper-middle class Home Counties drawl.  

About 25 minutes in we get a ‘can I be vulnerable with you guys?’ moment as Garrad reveals that her father spent much of her childhood in jail. This is a pivotal moment when she allows some – but not all – of her  exaggerated facade to slip, and dare to be authentic. Though details of what exactly he did remain unsaid.

It’s here – when we get more of the truth than the limited scope of the posh caricature – where the more involving material lies, with a story about her dad being pulled over by the cops as they drove to school particularly eye-opening.

However, we’re never too far from broader caricature of a rich bitch. Despite projecting these most unlikeable aspects, Garrad’s gossipy spirit, joy at being in the spotlight and playful audience interactions do win over those who weren’t already on board before they walked in the door. 

When she appeared in the 2023 So You Think You’re Funny? final, I wrote that Garrad had ‘a cracking Edinburgh debut in her’. By focussing on the vacuous posh princess persona at the expense of more of the true story of her life she’s fumbled that a bit. But it’s a decent start, and hopefully her next show’s going to be the truly cracking one.

Review date: 20 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard