Brighton Fringe comedy review

It’s vanishingly rare these days to see a comedy show driven purely by justifiable political anger. But Verity Sharpe's pointed and personal jeremiad against the inequities of the housing market is driven by the sort of outrage against the system rarely seen since the heyday of Eighties alternative cabaret.

Her stance is from first-hand experience of the very bottom rung, living in a mouldy, leaky flat in London. Dispatches from the front line are underpinned by a deeper resentment at the capitalist apparatus so heavily rigged towards those who already have a stake, and which considers housing a commodity rather than a human right.

The comedy is naturally bleak, but Sharpe finds some gallows mirth in her situation. She's at her best when belting out an angry punk anthem or relating a true-to-life poem in her John Cooper Clarke-influenced style. But some of the other bells and whistles dilute the impact. 

Because for all the righteous intent, the show itself is quite patchy with ill-advised audiovisual segments and overlong sketches that drag the pace down. 

That’s evident from the beginning, with a prelude dogged by an overabundance of ‘business’. We hear a recording of a phone call to her useless lettings agent, Jeff, who we then meet in a video sketch. Then there's an introductory track, and only then, finally, does the comic take to the stage.  The video sketch, especially, is pure, unfunny filler - especially when it’s later repeated in a mistake that takes too long to be noticed, one of many technical snafus blighting this particular performance.

An act-out involving her lettings agent is bloated while a bit of audience interaction with a semi-willing volunteer playing her flatmate serves to break up the narrative a bit, but has no great purpose or comedy value. 

The ‘landlord's wet dream’ reference is both to the dampness of her living conditions and to her being a property guardian – which her posh mates (the subject of another overblown sketch) think is a bargain way to live, although she's actually paying £750 a month with few facilities or tenant protections.

While the situations she describes are bleak – including her early life in social housing – Sharpe is remarkably bright-eyed and affable, showing it’s her accommodation situation that gets her riled up, rather than it being her default state.

With such fire in her belly, the charismatic comedian convincingly conveys the world in which she and so many of her generation find themselves – and highlights the rigged system that keeps people there.

• Verity Sharpe: Landlord's Wet Dream will be at Underbelly Bristo Square during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Review date: 31 May 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton The Actors