one4review | On 17, Aug 2025

Alex Stringer: Happy Hour is proof that stand-up can be tender,
mischievous, and deeply entertaining all at once. From the start she’s
chatty, comfortable and quick-witted, with smirks and laughter rippling
around the room, as she paints vivid pictures of a life both messy and
marvellously resilient.

A bisexual, teetotal Scouser with an alcoholic father and a “bad
bisexual” badge proudly flashed, she turns her recovery story into
something gloriously relatable to some audience members in particular,
without ever losing her natural warmth.

Mocktails? – “Expensive juice”.  AA? – “Fight Club with biscuits”.
These comedic perceptions land hard but never harshly; it’s
self-deprecation as connection, humour as survival.

Stringer’s anecdotes are accomplished and engaging, swinging from psych
ward “factory resets” to rehab camaraderie to the sheer absurdity of
filling the CV gap by inferring her recent journey was late gap-year
travel, leading to her role as a phlebotomist.

And in case things grow dark, she lightens the room by inviting
animal-noise heckles – vulnerability wrapped in playfulness.

The opposite of addiction, she reminds us, is connection. And here, in
this funny and humbly positive romp, she proves it: we’re connected,
we’re laughing, and we’re rooting for her next chapter.

***1/2

Reviewed by HJ

Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker 3

18.00 (1hr)

Until 24 Aug