Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

She's playing the Gilded Balloon’s tiny 50-seater Turret room, but it's hard to see how Hannah Byczkowski could be giving this performance any more welly if she was playing The O2. 

The 36-year-old dominates the room with the force of her earthy, larger-than-life personality. She’s positively Rabelaisian – were such a poncey word not entirely out of keeping with her straight-talking working-class attitude. 

There are some arena-ready routines here, too, such as her Ozempic bit, relatable, self-deprecating and damn funny. Her material is not always sophisticated – in fact she revels in being something of a basic Byczkowski – but it’s powerfully effective.

Initially, Killer is presented as a list of things she hates, from shirts bearing the names of places to tattoos acquired when too young to know any better. The format is a useful catch-all, even if, for all her alleged bugbears, the disdain is always delivered with a smile, signifying the robust but good-natured mickey-taking that characterises her nuclear-powered act.

Such short, sharp stand-up gives way to exuberant, uninhibited stories about her past and her family, especially the grandma affectionately nicknamed ‘dickhead’. Plenty of stories come from nights out and from her time working in care – making ‘DNR’ (do not resuscitate) into the most unlikely of catchphrases. Jackie, her friend from those days, is a fully fledged co-star in her ribald escapades.

You can tell from every aspect of Byczkowski’s being that she's something of a wind-up merchant, too, and from her account her long-suffering partner is well used to that.

There are a few downsides. Byczkowski is sometimes a bit too quick to go for the easy joke. She’s barely five minutes in before she’s talking about her labia, and there’s plenty of ‘blue’ about rimming and sex toys, much of which seems low-hanging.

Such sections mean this is the sort of show that will go down better with audiences than with critics. And on technicalities, her callbacks feel manufactured, especially given her motormouth delivery otherwise feels so unaffected.

But as the rapturous reception she achieved proves, punters care not for such niceties, swept up in the rambunctious delivery.

One public service announcement: don’t come expecting any GOSS from her winning series one of The Traitors. She’s a proper comic, not a reality star dabbling. In fact, many established acts would kill for one-tenth of her phenomenal stage presence.

Review date: 14 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot