Sarah Kendall: Get Up, Stand-Up, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

Sarah Kendall

“So what happened in the first 15 minutes, did you just not like me?” asks Sarah Kendall of her audience at the end of her show. Observational comedians are supposed to say what everyone else is thinking but on this matter, Kendall is too close to the bone: her audience tonight just don’t buy into her.

Personally, I find the Australian comedian and former Perrier nominee’s persona a kind of worthy vanilla, her incredulous posturing often lacking credibility. This is evident right from the off with an exaggerated routine about a review that reads, “I clapped til my hands exploded.”

She pursues the ridiculous statement to the nth degree and then does the same with the eating habits of her child, attempting an analogy with a grown-up smearing an omelette over the floor, but over-egging it somewhat.

When she gets into her theme (the world that her daughter is growing up in and its perception of women), over-elaboration still lurks though there are moments when she is more direct. “Becoming a swan is not a solution” she says of the poor example set by the story ‘The Ugly Duckling’ that she reads to her daughter. In Kendall’s version of the story the hero goads the cow (one of many animals who reject the duckling) by eating beefburgers in front of him, noting “this tastes like your mum.”

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