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Celya AB is a French comedian who has been based in England for perhaps the past decade, although for the first several years she lived in Birmingham. That’s not why her therapist diagnosed with her C-PTSD, though.
No, she has real weighty issues to tackle. She used to weigh seven stones heavier, a symptom and contributor to her depression and suicidal ideation. But there’s generational trauma to unpack here, as well, as Celya reveals how she grew up poor, her mother a former plastic surgeon who, having lost that job, turned to even odder employment. And then there were her grandparents, an Algerian grandfather who met her French grandmother, and how they fell in love despite the war that threatened to tear them apart. Don’t fret that this is one of those depressingly dark Fringe hours, however, for she has prepared us up front with the promise of 100 jokes, and each is worth at least 16 pence. And when it comes to love, Celya finds the silliness in the expectations of an old-fashioned proposal. From such a seemingly romantic moment, what follows is most assuredly a pathetic one for the man on his knee. And having witnessed the most tragic desperate act a depressed person can take, Celya has realized how much she wants to live. How much she wants to keep delighting us with her whimsy instead.
In three short years, Celya AB has graduated to larger rooms each Fringe at Pleasance Courtyard. Last year, she reports she also performed a radio gig for old patrons in a hot tent, so uncomfortable she could watch them falling asleep in front of her. Or were they dying. Twas “the biggest Guess Who? game” she quips. No such worries at this show and venue, where the gags are plentiful and worth all of your pence.
Celya AB “Of All People” plays at Pleasance Courtyard during the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe
