one4review | On 09, Aug 2018

Warning: spoilers. There’s a point in this show where the tone utterly changes and you will not see it coming. And that is brilliant, because the show is story-telling about growing up in the west of Scotland in the 70s, and that snap change offers some pale reflection of what it must have felt like to live through it.

Ms McBriar has both a lilting Glaswegian accent, liberally peppered with Scots and Scottish slang (including sweary words!), and the skill of narrating a story with just the right details. There’s something about stories narrated in a Glasgow accent which imbibes them with a rhythm which is mesmerising and immersive, and the things she talks about are immediately familiar and recognisable.

The start of the show contained the requisite chat with the audience (including impolitely but amusingly shutting down audients who talk too much) and introductory sort of stuff (in this show, about being working class and accompanying identifying features) before settling into the body of the show. This isn’t late night, booze-fuelled, two-‘jokes’-a-minute comedy, this is sit down and let the funny lady tell you a story that will provoke all sorts of emotions, including amusement. Don’t worry if you’re not laughing, you’ll still be having fun.

Martha can tell a tale, and if the ending was a little weak, that can be forgiven because it’s definitely the journey, not the destination, that matters.

Reveiwed by Laura

Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 19:15

Until 26th