1000 Tiny Birds

Fern Brady - Autistic Bikini Queen

Tobacco Factory Theatres, 2023-05-06

Unintentionally, this is the second taping of a thing I’ve attended in the space of a week (see previous entry). This time, it’s Fern Brady taping her latest tour show, Autistic Bikini Queen. The show comes hot off the tail of being diagnosed as an adult with autism, a topic she also covers in her excellent memoir Strong Female Character. The same topic is tackled, inevitably, in very different ways. Despite the more in your face title, Brady’s diagnosis is less prominent in stand up, and (obviously) treated much more as a subject for comedy. Brady’s an excellent comedian, able to craft high level routines full of momentum and bustling with evocative individual jokes, and if there’s not much of a determined throughline across the hour, she makes up for this with a callback-stuffed finale. Fascinating, though, to observe the pick-ups required at the end, and how the routines are nowhere near word perfect in their second (or third, or in one case fourth) recitation - not a criticism, just interesting to consider that in contrast with how I write/peform. Support/warm up comes from also excellent comedian and close friend Jessie Nixon, who does a wonderful job and we’re all very proud of her.