Candace Bryan has ‘the eyes of a psychopath’ and was raised by a single father in Memphis. Tennessee, which she tells us is the murder capital of the US. She’s lived in London for the last five years, so it’s not clear if the homicide rate has dropped since she’s left. There’s no obvious violence in those eyes, but she does think that that childhood has plenty to answer for in this breakneck hour that is a little unfocussed but zips by at a thunderous pace.

The show title isn’t quite accurate. Candace’s mother left when her daughter was still a baby and it was a topic that was largely not spoken about between Candance and her father. She was in her 30s before she even knew her mother’s name, so this isn’t a tale of curiosity driving Bryan to track her mom down. Instead, it revolves around an Instagram message she received from a woman called Christina a year ago.

The first thing you notice about Bryan’s comedy is that she is very much a joke-teller masquerading as a raconteur. The second is that she’s a chronic over-sharer. Each anecdote of sexual misadventure and stagnant relationships – and there are many – is burnished with gags. Many of them are excellent too. ‘I’m like the Olympics,’ she quips. ‘I’ve had lots of nations in me and it’s risked damaging my infrastructure.’ Be warned though, Candace is a level of candid that would have the most enthusiastic of libertines clutching for their pearls.

The problem is that with such a torrential rate of jokes, not all are going to land with everyone, and with the meager audience she has today – made more evident by the relatively large size of the Sub-Atomic Room at the Nucleus – it’s noticeable when one misses. As such, through no fault of Bryan’s own, there’s a sense of a frequent lack of momentum.

If Candace is bothered by this, she hides it well. She engages constantly with each member of the audience, inviting them to be her confidantes, or more accurately, her enablers given  her self-confessed need for validation. She’s a confident performer, with just a hint that her extremely forthright persona is a suit of armour through which the odd chink of vulnerability can be glimpsed.

The overall message of the show is one that lends itself to the anti-climactic. That’s not in itself a failing, but Bryan returns to the stage in the guise of her mother in a self-justifying mood. It suggests a lack of confidence in the ending and it doesn’t add much to the narrative as a whole. There’s much to like about Candace Bryan both as a stage presence, and as someone who can combine stand-up and storytelling to fine effect, but the wrinkles that are there seem to be magnified by the small crowd in a big room.

‘MILF (Mom I’d Like to Find)‘ is at Just the Tonic Nucleus – Just the Tonic Room until Sun 24 Aug 2025 at 15:10