Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Surpassing the potential suggested by her excellent debut last year, Sophia Wren dives deep in this bravura, barnstorming hour of stand-up from a singular talent who makes the difficult look easy.

Emerging on stage from a sheet, a child's doll hanging limply and forebodingly from the mic, the Irish comic has an ethereal, princess-like quality reminiscent of Stevie Nicks at her most mystic. And she appeals to any slighted 'witchy woo, astrology girls' in the crowd to enact revenge on their miscreant menfolk, in the least spiritual manner conceivable.

Talking a mile-a-minute, Wren then clarifies her hot mess personality and off-glam survivor aesthetic as 'sexy toddler', the arrested development of a 30-something who can no longer coast on her looks, at a time when a youthful appearance has never been more fashionable for toxic masculinity and the overt paedophilia of the patriarchy.

Having made the transition from frigid virgin to self-shaming slut through the guilt of Catholicism, Wren is unsparingly funny in her visceral descriptions of sex and body image, unsentimental about the deed itself and cosmetic surgery, archly satirical on the currency of beauty and fading beauty especially. The stakes seem particularly high for her, having grown up at a time when the Church still exerted such an influence over female sexuality, The Magdalen Laundries still to close.

Some childhood trauma is lightly skipped over, her abandonment issues inspiring her to abuse hired handymen and to a typically blunt, wicked gag about the wanderlust of bored billionaires. Similarly, after her teenage best friend betrayed her and took extreme measures, she can be airily dismissive. It's not even the heaviest thing in this densely funny yet shadowy hour, distinctly secondary to Wren nurturing her own early performing ambitions.

Besides, she's not one to brook the possibility of rivalries. Greta, Malala, Maria von Trapp, even her own sister – no-one is about to stand in the way of her being judged the best girl in the world.

The light-hearted campery of her Sound of Music section, so horny for the idealised Captain von Trapp, presages what could best be described as her Fairytale Of New York saga. In 2012, she moved to the US to be with an older man. Effusive and flirty, she found work in a bar, appreciating that massaging men's egos came with financial reward.

The circumstances by which the American dream turned sour are decidedly grim, though she's seeded them carefully. But there's a beautiful, ironic pay-off to the horror, as Wren has hidden her true light under a bushel, or at least her 'slutful' of spare change holder. Even recounting the bleakest points in her story, she's still gamely hilarious and unapologetically herself, appreciating that living well is the best revenge.

With a delightful and imaginative way with a visual image, Wren's elemental, force-of-nature delivery and onstage confidence belies some superbly crafted, deceptively punchy writing.

And, it transpires, a life full of drama. With another chapter opening up, full of trepidation but also joy.

Review date: 27 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot