Susie McCabe is a funny woman. She is also a very serious funny woman as her peroration (bit at the end) demonstrates. She has a point to make, an issue or two to raise and is massively effective in doing that. By then, we have gone through the wedding of two perimenopausal women, the issues of dressed up working class women staying in the Balmoral and enough effective material that the working class amongst us know where she is coming from… and where she has been.
And that includes a budget hotel in Hull and being fleeced for holding an owl clearly in need of a rescue. She has the delivery of someone who has been doing this for some time: measured, always hits her mark and holds back for the maximum laughs. Now and again, there are refences back to previous material, which is what sets McCabe out. She has that storytelling, meandering style which takes you seamlessly from one topic to another—Bottomless Brunches to interventions—but can toss in a hilarious reference to material worked through before. It makes the whole thing feel like we are in the here and now, hearing those connections for the first time. It is a consummate skill, and that is what McCabe has in abundance.
And so, from remembering to check the feet of your tattooist to confusion over a turn-down service, there is really so much upon which she draws that by the end you can do no more than just guffaw. There is no wee giggle, little by way of amusement, but you are struggling tae haud doon yer teeth.
It is that working-class view of life with the authentic voice of someone who suffered that in their upbringing that catches the crowd. There are some—Edinburgh does have 25% of its children in private education—who might struggle with her depictions of school life in a state-run school, but the authentic heartbreak that comes from being somewhere where you never give yer maw a showing up and dress to impress when you don’t need to is palpable.
But it was the self-improvement journey that really made me laugh the most. It may not make you a Tory, but it will lead to all of your pals who you grew up with questioning almost everything about you.
But, for me, it is the last few minutes that hit home the hardest. People were there for a good time, but the time she began rhyming, you could see that people had really bought into her message. By that time, we were all menaces and up for the task of mischief. And this is pure skill. Having recruited us, gathered us into legions, encouraged the wicked side, she now had targets in sight. We all bought the tickets, and we bought into the messages, with the hope of a Double Decker on our pillow. Now that is true love…