Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Control freakery? It’s not the worst personality trait you could have. It’s the sort of thing you might put down as a greatest weakness in a job interview, right there next to ‘perfectionist’.

Musical comedian Anna Hale certainly projects it as a positive self-starting attitude, an ability to get things done and learn from her own mistakes. After all, if you’re going to write, perform, produce and promote your own Fringe show, you need to be a dogged self-starter, so it’s all good. 

At least in the first song.

Because it soon becomes apparent that, in her case, this aspect of her character is a lot more than mere self-sufficiency. Beset by catastrophising thoughts, she is sent into a panic attack spiral by the fear that she can’t control everything. Her deepest phobia is of vomiting – the ultimate loss of control – and it comes to take over her whole life.

Control Freak, the show, is a frank examination of how she got to this place, and how she got out of it thanks to the cognitive behavioural therapy she had on Teams. Virtual sessions might not seem a great solution, but her Aussie therapist Jane – not her real name as Hale keeps reminding us – proves a godsend.

The story is told almost as a full-on musical – purely spoken segments are certainly in the minority – which makes full use of Hale’s unique set of skills. As a singer, she’s clear and crisp and dextrous with fast-paced lyrics. Here is where I’ll put the obligatory Victoria Wood reference every female musical comedian must have, but Hale really does bear comparison.

The superb compositions are emotionally revealing and musically catchy. One track, especially, is a persistent earworm, the words ‘this is a song about me’ still rattling around my head days later. A couple of others may be a little too long  – there is a feeling of not quite enough narrative for the hour – but they are consistently entertaining, jaunty despite their mental health content.

Hale’s an impressive presence, maybe with a touch of the over-eagerness of a musical theatre school kid but self-aware enough to know it, and with assured crowd skills, including selecting the perfect front-row punter to be her foil.

Her story of conquering her crippling emetophobia is an uplifting one, and is a fine advertisement for resilience, for the transformative power of CBT – and for Jane in particular. Not her real name.

Review date: 21 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard