Abbie Murphy: Eat Sleep Shit Shag

• Marissa Burgess
• 21 August 2019

This article is from 2019

credit: Idil Sukan

A top class hour from a former showgirl

As Abbie Murphy says herself, she's 'blonde, an ex-showgirl and from Essex': what exactly can you do with that? In her previous two Fringe shows, she's given us her alter-ego Stephanie Vange who happens to meet at least two of the above criteria. But for her 2019 affair, she's finally talking about her years spent working as a showgirl. It's surprising she's not done that before not least because it's a great excuse for wearing a full headdress for the entire hour.

This is a highly entertaining show cataloguing Murphy's time spent as a dancer on a cruise ship as well as in a Bollywood film, moving on to consider what she should so next. Spoiler alert: she went into comedy. One of her charms is a straightforward, salt-of-the-earth style employing phrases like 'clapped her tits off' about one particularly enthusiastic cruise audience member. At one point she probingly asks someone who confesses to have been on a cruise ship about his poo habits there.

There's a slightly random diversion into material about cars but frankly consider that a bonus as she chats so fast, sharp punchlines flying around like sweets from a spoilt kid's overstuffed piñata, that in a slower speaking comic's set there simply wouldn't be time. One to watch for sure.

Gilded Balloon at Old Tolbooth Market, until 25 Aug, 1pm, £6 in advance or donations at the venue.