by **** (out of 5)
In her official 2023 Fringe show description, Alice Fraser says: “The moment you think you’ve got a handle on things, life throws you a twist.”
I’m not going to tell you her latest twist, but the previous twists included the pandemic and her becoming a mother. Both twists help inform this hour; the former, by having Fraser include multiple breaks for ad reads (based on and inspired by her pandemic parallel-universe daily news podcast) because everything is considered content now; the latter, by Fraser revealing that when she was pregnant with her first child, she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She never mentioned it, or showed her belly on Zoom gigs. Fraser worried that people either in or outside of the comedy industry would treat her differently. After all, she’d fought to prove she could hang with the immature boy-men in stand-up comedy. And she didn’t want tto write that stereotypical motherhood show you can see in other Fringe posters. And yet. When 98 percent of her time is motherhood…. turns out her material must adjust accordingly. Of several poignant moments, one of the stand-outs is when Fraser attempts to empathize with a female friend who had to return to her job at Burger King only six weeks after giving birth, so Fraser in turn booked herself a stand-up gig in Sydney for six weeks after her own due date. That is, she adds: “If what I do is work…If what I do is stand-up.”
This might be her last Fringe for a while, so you might want to savor it.
Alice Fraser: Twist runs through Aug. 28 at Underbelly Bristo Square, Jersey
