★★★☆☆
The Freya Parker-like half of sketch duo Lazy Susan makes her solo Fringe debut in a gently chuckle-some hour. Here’s our It Ain’t Easy Being Cheeky review.
At the start of Freya Parker’s solo stand-up show last week (on the one day Edinburgh got a bit hot for ten minutes), she went around distributing mini electric fans to members of the audience.
Where for most Fringe shows, this had every opportunity of turning into some kind of bit – and there were a few chuckles to be had from a bit of fan-related improv – for Parker, it just seemed like she was being genuinely lovely.
That’s a feeling that permeates much of the Lazy Susan alum’s debut hour, which, while making for a perfectly comfortable and endearing evening, rarely offers much more than that.
The premise does lean into that feeling quite well. The idea is that Parker has always been a self-described “cheeky guy,” the kind of person who excitedly buys all the new hot cross bun flavours in Sainsbury’s before pretending to be a goblin during a performance review.
To help establish the truth of this claim, the audience is asked early on to establish if Parker’s past behaviour was either “cheeky” or “not cheeky.” It’s cheerful, call-and-response stuff, but the joke does wear a little thin after a while.
When she ties this behaviour into a spot of childhood trauma, the show gets all revved up to head in a more definitive direction. But rather than explore the correlation fully, Parker meanders a little more before fizzling out. The resulting hour is still entertaining, and the stand-up makes for great, charismatic company. But by the end of the show, it’s clear that being cheeky really isn’t that easy after all.
Freya Parker: It Ain’t Easy Being Cheeky is playing at the Pleasance Courtyard – Baby Grand at 17:50 until 27 August. You can view our comprehensive guide to the entire Fringe here.
