Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Unfashionable just a few years ago, character comedy is really having a moment in 2026, presumably as a result of its surging popularity on short-form video, a medium to which it’s obviously well-suited.

Riding that wave to her Fringe debut is Imogen Andrews, who has been doing solid work on the timeline for a couple of years, often in conjunction with SNL’s Al Nash and other social media heavyweights. ‘Expect a stiff performance with limited eye contact,’ she warns at the outset, clearly still easing herself in to live work.

I’m not familiar enough with the online material to recognise how many of the characters have been ported over, but I suspect not many, as there weren’t any woops of recognition from the crowd, and no identifiable catchphrases. 

Instead, Andrews trades in reliable archetypes given a little twist. There’s the deluded estate agent with vocal fry still obsessing over her ex, a West London bougie mum critiquing her son’s rap track and – rather more successfully, Lena, a ‘European International Queen’ gender-transplanting pick-up artist rhetoric to help women ‘attract a high value man,’ by ‘activating their natural female pheromones.’ The fact that she immediately loses her nerve and stumbles over her words when talking to a man is not the most unexpected choice that Andrews could have made but is funny nonetheless.

Shifts between characters are handled slightly clunkily, with Andrews playing a video while she rushes off stage to change. It works best when she finds ways to synchronise the video with the character she’s playing, as in her enjoyably flimsy idea to do a Bonnie Blue parody who just wants to eat eggs with a thousand men.

Ultimately, most of her lines just land a little mutedly. You can hear her approximating the staccato rhythms of her videos in her speech, but the alchemy has not yet taken place that would allow it to translate to the live arena. It’s like there’s an invisible screen between audience and stage. Unfortunately, you can’t shortcut this stuff, but like any other performance muscle, it’ll get stronger in future shows.

Review date: 19 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Pleasance Dome