From innocence to experience, the cast of last year's series of the US reality show Dancing with the Stars ran the full gamut. In one corner, sexual abstinence campaigner Bristol Palin. In the other, Margaret Cho, the Korean-American comedian who is to sexual abstinence what Caligula was to good governance. "I want to get fucked into assisted living," says Cho, whose Edinburgh show hymns her carnal voracity and her war against the Palinification of the US. Even as her tales of cunnilingus and geriatric sex strain for gaudy effect, it's a cosy, congratulatory – and enjoyable – affair.
Cho is the self-styled "patron saint of outsiders". Which is an admirable role to fill, except sanctity and comedy make uneasy bedfellows. Her show is a celebration of non-conformism that flatters the liberal credentials of her audience. "It's weird when your apartment is the ghetto, the gay neighbourhood and Chinatown," she says of a recent stay in the Deep South. Conservatism – social, political and sexual – is the bogeyman here, as Cho smokes pot, sings a song about a homicidal marriage, and rails against timid lovers – including the suitor who lost interest when he discovered Cho had "cut her asshole hair evenly".
She's not averse to comedic conservatism herself, however – her mother's exaggerated Korean accent elicits cheap laughs. And the idea of old people having sex is flogged for its limited comic value. But it's all done with a big-hearted sense of fun, such that Cho's gynaecological and scatological routines come across as cuddly, rather than queasy. The anecdotes from her career on American telly, meanwhile, have a certain gossipy appeal. Outsiders could do worse for a patron saint, and comedy audiences will find few more luridly intimate accounts of the hedonistic lifestyle.
