Lucie Pohl: Really, Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Real HH

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 9:00pm – 10:00pm, 31 Jul – 25 Aug

TICKETS: £10 – £11

Lucie Pohl is a star if you play video games. As the voice of Mercy in Overwatch she has thousands of Instagram followers, and gets invited to fan conventions all over the world. She also dubs Kim Kardashian’s voice for German television. Yet she admits she doesn’t feel like a pampered celebrity, living in a crummy flat in New York, her fame in some contexts colliding distressingly with her mundane existence elsewhere.

This conflict could lead to interesting comic explorations he now claims to lead. Riffs on religion, on family, and on work are tucked in around the edges. It’s as well-rehearsed, well-structured an hour as you could wish for, but it lacks big laughs and bite. There’s little edge or excitement.

Akbar is a easy, endearing performer, plying a nice line in self-deprecating, ironic arrogance and a reassuring smile. He doesn’t seem particularly phased that his Tuesday mid-afternoon crowd aren’t the most responsive or raucous. “Those were jokes,” he reassures his audience after a quick bait-and-switch quip about Islam and homophobia. “Relax a little, have a laugh.”

If there’s a point to his performance, it’s that sexual education in this society is sorely lacking and that without it, all sorts of stupid, damaging ideas filled his head. There’s a great anecdote about the first time he held a girl’s boob. She panicked, hit him, then rang up the next day to apologise.

It’s just as shame he has to play it so safe. His material is safe, his punchlines are safe, his delivery is safe. It’s a show in desperate need of some spontaneity and energy. It’s polished to perfection. Paralysingly so. ✏︎ Fergus

Morgan

of identity and stardom, but here the jokes and insights aren’t sharp enough to get us somewhere intriguing. She mocks those conventions and fans her livelihood is dependent on, which is odd.

While she insists she wants to downplay her renown, she spends a lot of time reminding the audience of it, which means the display of modesty is unconvincing. Yet a sequence about the anxieties of posting on social media could be hackneyed, but is genuinely given an edge for someone with this particular kind of fame.

In the end, though, the jokes she delivers are not as honed as they could be, with a delivery that doesn’t always make them land. And some of the content seems oddly old-fashioned too, given there’s material reliant upon such stereotypes as stingy, red-headed Scots and humourless Germans.

It’s unclear what she wants to be: a rarefied raconteur inviting punters into a world likely alien to them, or a down-to-earth jobbing performer who feels she got lucky a couple of times. ✏︎ Brett Mills