Having made a name for herself on Live at the Apollo (BBC Two), Mock the Week (BBC Two), Room 101 (BBC One) and regularly heard on BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz, Just a Minute, The Now Show and plenty more, the popular Brighton based comic Zoe Lyons has returned to the Fringe with her new show Entry Level Human, which she commented was “hardly a TED talk”, but was filled with so much hilarious observational insight over its 60 minutes that perhaps its only disqualification is its length.
The title of the show is named after the “entry level” humans we encounter in day to day life. The people who leave rubbish on the beach. The ones who go on holiday to a tropical paradise and complain about the noise of the crickets. The ones who can’t comprehend airport security and hold the queues up, or never stop talking to you on a plane. You know the ones – and Zoe has encountered more than her fair share.
Through brilliant tales of flies, near death experiences while scuba diving, and flat whites (“if I could be so wrong about milk to coffee ratio my whole life… I could be wrong about anything”), she relates her observations to Brexit (and the entry level humans who voted for it), our lack of ability to talk about issues we disagree with, and the divide between reality and expectation that causes most of our misery.
She humorously comments on how we spend our lives trying to detach from others – from our early days sharing a room with our parents, to finally ending up solo in a brexit coffin in the ground. There’s a lot more to that on, but I’ll leave her to talk you through it.
Brilliantly written (even if she didn’t have an internet connection), the show cleverly weaves through all these topics, bringing up plenty of laughs, while her comments on society and the “fuckwits” we live with prove particularly insightful. In a comedy hour at the Fringe we expect to have a laugh, but Lyons delivers so much more.
Clever, funny and insightful; It’s hardly a ted talk, but it may just have been better.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Zoe Lyon’s show Entry Level Human continues at the Dining Room in the Guilded Balloon Teviot during the Edinburgh Fringe until August 26th. For tickets and more details head HERE.
The writer attended the performance on August 23rd.
