one4review | On 15, Aug 2026

Sometimes it’s the audience that’s the issue, not the performer. Harriet Dyer has a fast-moving and surreal sense of humour, but we as the audience were a bit lethargic and mid-weeky. Hers is a comedy that is a cumulative piling of funny, images and punchlines heaping up thick and fast, the laughter from one continuing into the next, but it does require an audience willing to surrender to it.

There’s not a narrative as such for this show, and this is perhaps the closest to ‘traditional’ stand up I’ve seen from Ms Dyer, but it retains all of the random brain starts, diversions, distractions and curiosity that make her such a rapid-fire delight. Her off-the-cuff responses to the room are as skilled as the rest of her material, and she’s an engaging presence on the stage.

There is only her on the stage, with a couple of props, and she doesn’t need anything more, such is the quality of her storytelling and image-painting. As with many excellent comedians, she is able to take mundane topics – learning to drive, selling things on eBay, housesharing – and imbue them with her own personal blend of curiosity, what-iffery and experience, transforming them in to unexpected hilarity. All of the stories are finished, and she doesn’t leave us frustrated, wondering, what happened to the solitary shoe, though the end may come after several – funny – diversions. I’ve been a follower since the dinosaur costume, and it’s lovely to see her continue to develop as a wonderful performer

Reviewed by Laura
Cabaret Voltaire 2, Monkey Barrel Comedy
Until 30th (not 17th)