@ Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, until Sun 30 Aug @ 17:30
With playful, honest humour, Australian Bec Hill gives a lot to the audience and gets a lot of warmth back in return. Here she’s talking regrets, starting with her own (it involves VHS, hence the title), before heading off onto those that she’s been collating from folks on social media.
Regrets brought on by physical limitations provide a ready excuse for material about bodily functions – sweating, farting, her own IBS. Occasionally she builds to revelations that are neither surprising nor especially funny, but there’s more to this show than simply going for a killer line. She’s building rapport, always building rapport, bringing the audience together with her and with each other. In fact, a lot of her act relies on other people, whether it’s the social media correspondents who’ve supplied their regrets, the audience members helping her train to do accents or the lady dragged on stage to do fart jokes. It’s crowd-sourced comedy with Hill as the ringleader.
Her real gems are the pop-up cartoon flip chart sequences she does. Impossible to fill an hour solely with them, of course, but they’re her strongest suit. She definitely saves the best ’til last – a visual recreation of Piaf’s Je Ne Regrette Rien. Nothing revolutionary, but exquisitely done.
It’s very easy to warm to Hill, and her light, breezy comedy allows her to make some good, important points about how to live your life, although it may be altogether too wholesome for some tastes. 80s kids’ show Art Attack is referenced a couple of times; it’s a good fit with Hill’s vibe.