one4review | On 03, Aug 2025

The Sound of Mucus, and other stories.

Glasgow’s Yvonne Hughes has weathered more Fringes than most. But her biggest achievement isn’t artistic — it’s simply being here. Early on, a haunting VT monologue plays over footage of 1970s doctors coldly explaining a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis. We’re told about the infamous sweat test, and the flat prognosis: early twenties, if you’re lucky. Hughes is now 50. She’s lucky. And after this hour, you’ll feel like you are too.
But don’t come expecting inspiration-porn. Absolutely Riddled is defiant, unsentimental, and often riotously funny. There are moments that break your heart and others that blindside you with belly laughs. “Enjoy” isn’t quite the word — but it’s poetic, honest, and unforgettable.
From there, the show shifts into a kind of stand-up storytelling mode, tracing her coming-of-age in 70s and 80s Glasgow. No rose-tinted nostalgia here. She paints it as it was: shit. Thatcher, strikes, war, unemployment (sound familiar?) — and the borderline barbaric treatment she received from the medical system. The humour has a gallows tilt, but there’s heart too. It’s a story about family, defiance, and somehow keeping going when everything around you seems to be falling apart.
She goes into unflinching detail about the disease itself — bodily fluids, the grim logistics of being intimate when your lungs are working against you, and what it’s like trying to live while your body slowly betrays you. This could all veer into bleakness — but it doesn’t, because Hughes is a comic first. Her style has shades of her hero Victoria Wood — conversational, offbeat, warm — but shot through with something darker, sharper, more lived-in.
She occasionally chats to the audience like they’ve walked in halfway through with a cuppa and isn’t afraid to linger in the awkwardness. It’s not polished — and that’s the point. It adds to the charm.
This isn’t a pity party. There are great bits about trying (and failing) to get the Princess Diana haircut, school, university — all while that quiet tick-tock plays in the background. She never oversells the sadness. She lets it linger, then moves on. Her vulnerability is real. One minute she’s talking about respiratory failure; the next she’s cracking a line so perfectly timed you almost miss how hard it hits.
So how is she still here? I’ll leave that for her to explain — she does it better than any review ever could.
You’ll come out a little rattled, a little uplifted, entertained too — and with the sense that this is exactly the kind of show the Fringe was made for.

****
Reviewed by Steve H
Gilded Balloon Patter House Snug
11.30 to 12.30
Until 15th August (not 11th)