★★★½

Review by Tony Frame. Venue 24. Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose – Nip @ 19:00

Kylie Brakeman bursts onto the stage as Linda Hollywood, acting-agent extraordinaire,  and does a manic rendition of the song Hooray For Hollywood amidst intermittent phone calls from her personal assistant. Things go from bad to worse as her clients seem to be jumping ship from her agency due to something she said that was misquoted in the media.

It’s a lively start from the energetic and charismatic American; she practically woke up some of the early-evening Edinburgh audience from their post-dinner tiredness. But some of the celebrities she mentioned at the beginning, and the ensuing jokes at their expense, went way over the heads of some of the audience (mine included) as we didn’t know who they were. This can sometimes be an issue when an American comedian brings a show to the UK, or more precisely, to Scotland. It’s the equivalent of a British comedian going over to Los Angeles and doing a bunch of jokes about Ant and Dec whereby most of the audience wouldn’t have a clue who they were. We’re not as well-versed about celebrities over here as people think, I mean, I’d be surprised if you could find five people in the whole of Scotland who’ve actually seen an episode of Saturday Night Live.

This was a minor thing though, as Kylie’s fast-talking Linda Hollywood gave us everything we needed to know about being an agent and what it takes to become an actor and make it big in Tinseltown. The format of her show is simple, but it draws you in with each passing minute. But it wasn’t just Linda Hollywood who graced the stage with her presence; Kylie played a multitude of characters, some of which worked better than others I have to say, but all of them kept us entertained throughout.

And then there was that sketch. A sketch that (as far as I’m concerned) was one of the funniest and most original sketches I’ve seen in years. YEARS. Comedy is so subjective, but I’ve seen a lot of movies and TV in my time, and this sketch was beyond brilliant and so ingenious. I mean, anyone can be an actor, right? Well, Linda Hollywood certainly proves that, with the help of a five-minute countdown and an audience member’s help, and boy oh boy, we all laughed, and we laughed again, and again, and we laughed some more until we were in pain. It was brilliant. Beyond brilliant.

Kylie Brakeman’s comedy style is so relentless and unpredictable that she keeps you waiting and guessing as to what is going to come next. And whilst not all the jokes and sketches of the evening were hits, for every one that missed the mark, they were quickly followed by two or three that did. Her alter-ego Linda Hollywood is a larger-than-life powerhouse of comedy gold, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if she made the transition from stage to screen in the near future.