theSpace @ Surgeons Hall
Edinburgh Fringe, 2023
Ave Atque Vale
NYC-based comic, Natalie Perlin is a goddess of gallows and had a tremendously successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2023. She brings a courageous style, a leopard-print dress and the novelty hook of very large breasts, allowing her to subvert expectations and deliver maximum darkness and shock value in her material.
I attended on her last night and the crowd was decidedly demure, inexplicably so given the blurb clearly articulated what kind of show it was and it was a Saturday night! I would have thought people would be liquored up and ready to rock but they seemed prudish and stiff, which totally clashed with her style.
Nonetheless, I was able to enjoy her writing and the playful, innocent spirit with which she sets you up for the shocking twists of humour. I love a dark comic and she has earned her stripes, weaving a twisted tale; a weird and f***ed up world we wouldn’t encounter anywhere else.
The curiosity that we all have for someone with large breasts is used wonderfully by Perlin, with the satire being that she’s of course a regular human and the breasts don’t change anything. It’s other people’s judgements and tendency to define her by a physical characteristic that is the darker aspect underpinning her show.
She seemed to be somewhat discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm of the crowd and perhaps the exhaustion she and the audience were feeling at the end of a long fringe – who knows? I thought her work deserved more exuberance from attendees but nonetheless, perhaps she could also develop better tools to win over that sort of hostile audience, then she would be a seriously top-line comedian.
Everyone applauded in the end but I wonder whether they might have missed out on getting more involved and making the night special. It’s not just her breasts that are gigantic but also her strength of character and courage to perform the vital service of showing us the humanity on the other side of people’s darker tendency to objectify.
Stuart Bruce
Mumble Comedy 