Joanne McNally is worried she doesn’t have a hook. She doesn’t have a mental health issue, which most of the Fringe seems to, she has never been abused, she’s straight and she doesn’t have a food intolerance. In fact, she tells the full audience, she is a terrible millennial. What follows is a funny, down-to-earth account of her everyday life which she just so happens to be able to turn into a comedic hour which deserves a bigger venue than she has.
McNally swapped copywriting for comedy in 2014 and has quickly established herself as a top Irish comic. She has a generous mix of observational comedy, one-liners and audience interaction. The latter is expertly done, avoiding the cringeworthy audience participation which many comedians seem to go for these days, and instead replacing it with a conversational style where she befriends audience members and comes back to them time and again to affirm the tales she tells.
Topics covered in this witty and energetic hour range from the ageing process, motherhood, plastic surgery, internet dating and, of course, “the lady petrol” which inspired the show’s title – wine. She admits to knowing little about the alcoholic beverage but knows she likes it (in all its variants) and notes how it is far more acceptable to announce it is “wine o’clock” than to say it’s “vodka o’clock”! Everyone can agree on that and it is this all-inclusive style of humour which will no doubt propel McNally to increasingly bigger and better things at the Edinburgh Fringe.
McNally has a charm and confidence which makes the audience really warm to her and has a winning formula for a very successful Fringe run (with not a food intolerance or an ethically grown carrot in sight).