Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Aliens have landed in every city on Earth, and a dithering backbench Labour MP has the task of managing the situation. 

In telling this story, Rosie Holt skilfully switches through characters and scenarios, weaving in audience participation and a range of perspectives while delivering her usual sharp satire.  

Drawing a crowd who are most likely to be familiar with her from short, viral online sketches, Holt easily holds the attention for an hour. She is skilful in the transitions between characters, using the stage, space and lighting well with sparse props and little need for outfit changes.

More than anything, the strength of this show is in her high energy and clever quips. Holt is generous with audience participants and charming even when one of her characters unleashes an abusive tirade towards someone in the front row. The pacing of the segments works well, and she is particularly funny in moments where she stumbles with her script or a cue. Her impressions of Fiona Bruce and Emily Maitlis are a great bonus. 

Her jokes and plot are enriched by references to alien movies ranging from ET to Devil Girl From Mars without making the show laboured in its intertextuality. 

Holt also makes reference to her past relationship with Stewart Lee, though she doesn’t mention him by name. There is tenderness and vulnerability here that adds depth to the work, acknowledging the personal impact of life in the spotlight and the sexism that comes with it.

She reserves specific attention to the impact of being analysed by male reviewers and opinionated men in the audience. This makes the show more challenging for a man to review but at one point Holt seems to anticipate the criticism to come. 

This is that the moral of the story, or any political point Holt is trying to make here about others, aliens and immigrants, lacks clarity at the end. 

A ‘one year later’ scene is confusing in terms of who the aliens are or were and it might be that the show is missing a piece of the dramaturgical jigsaw that at least states more clearly that the writer has decided not to pick a side in this increasingly toxic debate. 

Review date: 12 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: John Simpson