Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Following up her tricksy, award-nominated debut Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, Elouise Eftos draws on a similar range of concerns for Aphrodite, an exploration of the possibility of love in a world where men and women seem more divided than ever. 

Possibly written at a less leisurely pace than her debut, this new show is denuded, largely shorn of the impressions, movement and coups de theatre that characterised her breakthrough, presenting instead as a relatively no-frills hour of concentrated stand-up.

Eftos greets the audience in full costume as the titular goddess, then slips into a cocktail dress for the rest of the show, denoting a shift from an avatar of love into something rather more challenging. 

‘I’ve never been in love, and I don’t think it’s real,’ she grins at the audience. It’s an example of her signature move: a teasing, semi-ironic provocation delivered with rakish charisma and the confidence of the devil herself. Weirdly, it generates exactly the same feeling in the soul as male edgelords like Fin Taylor, who are in many ways the natural target of Eftos’s slings and arrows.

Her thesis is that the tide turned with an article in Vogue – Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now? by Chante Joseph – that gave voice to a feeling of dissatisfaction with dating men that she feels very keenly. The men she encounters seem to view Eftos as a trophy or commodity, trapped as they are in a prison of masculinity that prevents them from connecting to women as equals or even enjoying their company. 

And above it all hangs the looming threat of violence. ‘Why are you as a woman saying you enjoy getting choked during sex?’ she asks, getting as close to the knuckle as possible – ‘are you microdosing femicide?’

It’s an enjoyably sour show, where even the potentially joyful moments – like getting all the straight men to stand up and dance with her – seem to be born out of a spirit of cheeky terrorism. For members of the audience lucky enough to know love, it might be hard to recognise your own experience in the blasted landscape of dating she describes, where men hate funny women and see marriage only as a chance to 'pass on their seed.' The spirit of love is needed more than ever.

Review date: 26 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Pleasance Dome