Most comics perform half a dozen fringe stints, or more, before the festival starts its slide down their list of priorities. Aisling Bea is making only her second visit, but has had to squeeze the writing of Plan Bea into the gaps between filming Sky sitcom Trollied, ITV’s The Delivery Man and a season in Hollywood. Her success is richly deserved: her award-nominated 2013 debut was a smasher. But its follow-up may have suffered from a lack of attention. It’s an enjoyable enough set, but one that lacks an identity of its own, consolidating rather than building on that high-impact introduction two years ago.
There’s a half-buried theme about shame and confidence in here, which Bea belatedly cranks into focus. But much of the set revisits the territory of its predecessor, as Bea recalls growing up in rural Ireland, where single mums were better off bereaved than divorced, and where the siren call of Baywatch turned girls’ heads (well, Aisling and her sister’s) towards America. She gets there in the end, but not before drama school and a failed relationship with a man questionably diagnosed by Bea’s friend as suffering “the curse of the wandering mickey”.
This is all peppy enough, and Bea – an energetic storyteller with bass-notes of clownish goofiness – has charm to spare. But some of her material is uninspired. Class cliches underpin the self-mocking riff about her fondness for coconut water, and the sections on how Americans differ from the Irish and the Brits (we say “sorry” all the time, ho-hum) is whiskery. Her climax, meanwhile, depends on us feeling her shame at a one-time acting job that doesn’t come across (when screened here) as very shameful at all. Her palpable star quality keeps proceedings engaging, but Bea’s going through the motions a bit here.
- At Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, until 30 August. Box office: 0131-622 6552.
