Review from the Women In Comedy festival

Thao Cao, a dry and deadpan Australian comic, certainly has some gripping stories to underpin her show built around near-death experiences. 

The most fascinating – and the most crucial in the current political climate – is that she was a Vietnamese ‘boat person’ who endured a 42-day journey at sea to get to Australia as a young child. Another reveals how tough life was before that, surviving a health scandal that claimed the lives of scores of babies.

These are not, obviously, funny stories, and she advisedly does not make any attempt to lighten them with jokes, but they are compelling. However, they do inform a few gags about cultural differences, such as the difficulties in speaking in a tonal language like Vietnamese.

When she is doing more traditional stand-up routines, the material is largely overfamiliar. How many times have we heard comics talking about the communion wafer as being a snack and about being careful not to use a boyfriend’s toilet, lest the magic of romance be broken? 

And people have been joking about mistaking Taylor Hanson for a girl ever since his eponymous band's MMMBop was a hit – a full 29 years ago. The reference soared over the heads of younger audience members, just as a routine about working in a care home relied too much on us knowing who an Australian culinary icon is. Without that instant recognition of Margaret Fulton, who died in 2019, the story doesn’t stack up to much. 

Some of these routines feel like the sort of things that rookies come up with when starting stand-up, yet Cao made her Edinburgh debut more than eight years ago. Also, many of these stories and routines were in a show of hers Chortle reviewed three years ago under a different title – and which we made similar criticism of.

However, there is a notable new bit in which she displays a knack for physical anti-comedy, demonstrating what she learned from her pricey drama degree  But now, as in 2023, the compelling stories and pertinent sentiment about the nature of racism are let down by comedy that’s hacky or needlessly long-winded, with the longueurs especially keenly felt because of her detached delivery style.

Review date: 12 Oct 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Manchester The Fitzgerald