Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It would be easy to see Jenny Gorelick as a caricature, a young-millennial New Jerseyan who tends to end her sentences with a vocal fry drawl, puts emojis on her PowerPoint slides and complains about her misadventures on the dating apps – where she’s set her parameters as ‘men who own boats’.

But that slightly vapid persona is a disguise for perceptive social commentary, especially on gender expectations. The title, for instance, refers to how women will apologise for everything, men for nothing, just part of an emotional imbalance she’s observed at close quarters – and repeatedly.

At 34 (going on 24) she does not hold the opposite sex in particularly high esteem. Her father set a low bar for expectations – which has only been brought down further through contact with almost every other man in her dating history.  When it comes to knowing how to spot useless straight guys, she’s written the book on it – literally. The Book of Red Flags was published in January. Her misadventures have also featured in the New York Times… so they’re fact-checked, she quips.

Yet she keeps going back for more, with myriad stories of the emotionally stunted people with whom she’s been in relationships or situationships. One was even a magician, prompting a volley of excellent wordplay. Across the hour, Gorelick proves herself a nifty and prolific writer of short gags, meaning you’re never far from another zinger – down to her fast-speaking style as much as her worthy compunction to cram her work with punchlines. 

Acting out recurring mini-sketches such as her imagined, unlikely, offshoots of the Real Housewives franchise, play to her peppy energy, while helping maintain that formidable gag rate. It means she covers a lot of ground, from family history to making money offering (non-nude) content on OnlyFans. Though her show probably wouldn’t pass the Bechdel Test, given its overwhelming focus on men, it speaks to the shared experiences of women in the age of Hinge and Bumble.

As she moves through the hour, her tone gets subtly darker, too. The observation that ‘when men are competent they use it for evil’ allows this Jewish comic to crack Hitler jokes with edge as she hurtles towards her conclusion of what’s proven to be a heady stand-up hour.

Review date: 6 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Monkey Barrel Comedy (Niddry Street)