Towards the end of her show, Katie Mulgrew says that, unlike some comics on the Fringe, she doesn’t think comedy is “art”. It’s a fair point. Not everything has to be stunning high concept theatrics, and she makes a good enough case here for non-“art” comedy. She’s a Lancashire lass doing straight down the line stand-up and there’s nowt wrong with that.
Mulgrew was on maternity leave for last year’s Fringe, and this hour is about her newborn, Jim. The show being called Saboteur (and the walk on music being Sabotage by the Beastie Boys) the assumption is she’s going to let rip about how the wee man has wrecked her life. But if that is the origin of the title, it’s not a connection she makes explicit, and although there’s a reference to post-natal depression, and a lot about the consequences of childbirth for both her relationship and vagina, the hour’s perky and upbeat.
Husband Lee comes in for some light ribbing, alongside other down-home anecdotes. She tells us what happened when a friend’s uncouth mother got left in charge of a hipster 30th, and how being a mum with a pushchair doesn’t save you from public transport altercations. We get some musing on what a name says about you (her kid’s called Jim, so you can imagine what she thinks of names like Tristram) and diatribes against people who hold fancy parties for their one-year-old.
Maybe it’s not “art”, but it’s good kickabout comedy, and by all accounts around the venue, it sounds like she’s had a good Fringe. Her poor tech gets repeatedly used as a foil today, Mulgrew sympathising with the teenage lad for the month he’s just spent listening to her talk about her vagina, but behind the discomfort and resignation in his eye there’s a look that suggests that really, it’s not been a bad gig at all.