Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Very few comedy reviews have to start with the assertion that the performer in question is definitively not a murderer, but we are where we are.

However, I have to report that Amanda Knox is also no comedian, not really.

To the surprise of nobody, the Edinburgh Fringe debut of the woman twice convicted but ultimately exonerated over the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in 2007, has been embroiled in controversy, with the victim’s family and some of her friends lobbying hard for the show to be cancelled. 

They say that at best, Knox is cashing in on the tragedy or at worst making light of it. That latter charge is most definitely untrue. Cartwheel is purely based on the experiences Knox had to endure, which she relays with mordant, acidic humour. The butt of the jokes is always her own circumstances. And the argument that she shouldn’t be silenced after enduring two decades of other people’s loudly expressed opinions on her is a convincing one.

Since the show opened at the Gilded Balloon, there have also been suggestions that this is not a comedy production - despite its place in that section of the Fringe programme - but more of a spoken word/theatrical piece.

But the first half, at least, certainly has comic intent. The lines are written with the rhythms of jokes, with astringent payoffs coming on the final beat. Some are quite funny, as objectively as that can be said. Yet they are presented from behind a fourth wall, and the tone is relentlessly sombre. Isolated bitter laughs puncture the solemnity, but little joy can thrive in this harsh environment.

As she speaks, Knox is seen folding her toddler daughter’s clothes, tidying her toys - emphasising the maternal coding even before the cutesy voice asks on tape: ‘Mama, why is your face sad?’ Given all she’s endured, Knox thinking of what world her daughter has been born into, and what her own mother must have gone through over the years of incarceration, is clearly high in her mind – but, my, is it laid on mawkishly thick.

In the second part, the tone becomes even more serious as Knox directly addresses the misogynistic media, judicial landscape and wider society that was so quick to judge her, in the literal or metaphorical sense of the word. And she recalls the emotional impact of the experience – most significantly the fact that had she served the 20-plus-year terms she had been sentenced to, she would have been robbed of the chance to be a mother.

She pays fulsome tribute to Meredith Kercher and calls out the hypocrisy which means her name remains so embedded in the cultural consciousness whereas that of the actual killer, Rudy Guede, has been all-but forgotten. Should she have changed her name to escape that reputation? No, she says, as she believes that would be to accept some guilt.

Knox nonetheless feels, with some justification, that she has been vilified based on nothing more than ‘vibes’. Even her supporters say her behaviour at the time made things weird. Cartwheel is named after the gymnastic manoeuvre she allegedly executed in the police cells during a gap in questioning. She says that, no, it was the splits – as encouraged by an officer who saw her doing yoga. But, so what if she was doing a cartwheel, she argues; that is not evidence of guilt

This is all deep, emotive stuff – and would certainly have been received differently as a spoken-word piece, especially if the first half had not drawn on the language of comedy so heavily.

For Knox is a long way from being a proficient enough comedian to have pulled that off. It seems her Stand-Up Experience extends to some local open spots in Washington State and opening for Nikki Glaser, who saw some footage of her performing on Instagram. 

But making more than a few isolated one-liners out of any major trauma is a tall order even many established comedians struggle with. Although it’s been more than a decade since she was definitively acquitted of murder, Knox seems to be in a rush to get her story to the stage. Perhaps understandably.

Review date: 12 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot