one4review | On 09, Aug 2018

Jen Brister is happy to be in Edinburgh. In fact I think that she is happy to be anywhere currently. As a forty something non-biological mother of 3 year old twin boys, she is pre-menopausal and to make life even more difficult her somewhat overbearing Spanish mother has arrived for a short stay with Jen and her partner, the stay currently lasting over 6 months. Makes the trial of an Edinburgh show seem easy.

She was angry in her twenties but is livid in her forties. She vents on people who deserve being vented on, she rightly is irate about the gender pay gap, abhors the ‘period poverty’ situation, is unhappy about women having a harder ageing process than men and the inadequacies of search engines more clued up when researching some female conditions.

She is not all rage though, she is funny and her material well written and delivered. Ms Brister also has hope for raising her children. She aims to improve them gradually and hope that this trend will continue with subsequent generations.

I have always liked her as a performer and especially when she ‘brings her mother along.’ The characterisation just makes me laugh. Perhaps she should have a show of her own.

****

Reviewed by Geoff

Monkey Barrel 1

13.45 to 14.45

Until 26^th (not 15^th)