★★★★
‘Every 1 in 2’500 people have cystic fibrosis in the UK. Every 1 in 4 people in Scotland is ginger, so I got lucky’. So Hughes explains, mixing facts and silly jokes in such a way, that it feels like you’re meeting your mate at the pub, rather than sitting in the Patter Hoose. There’s that Glaswegian twinkle in the eye that gives Yvonne this no-bullshit armour to her set. It’s delightful, honest and more authentic than some of the more polished comedians with all-too-honed ‘tight fives’.
The fact that she’s standing before us in her forties is already beyond her expectations, something that is dangled at the top of the show. It’s the journey of her life experience with cystic fibrosis that gives meaning and shapes this fact. I realised I knew next to nothing about the condition. (I think a lot of us are in that boat?) But Yvonne isn’t confrontational, in fact ever so deprecating. It’s vital we learn and understand these stories.
There are moments where Yvonne is a little unsure of herself, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Authenticity is stamped through every moment, and you don’t want to stagecraft that away.
Hughes has achieved something phenomenal here, to take a personal story of illness, something people want to shy away from and to own it, bring it into the light, on her own terms, to be funny about it, but also to educate.
