Camden Fringe Review: Catie Wilkins

It’s likely that Catie Wilkins is bringing a new and previously impossible definition of “chronically shy” to the stage one gig at a time, which, although an obstacle for a stand-up comedienne, is not insurmountable. The fact that her set material did little to raise a proper out-loud laugh from anyone in the audience over the course of the night is the more pressing problem.

Inheritance Tax is a series of stories without punchlines, all of which revolve around her unremarkable parents and stitched together with a few out-of-the blue quotes from Oscar Wilde and Sartre. It’s a pretty unpolished set, too - a good chunk of the show is dedicated to reading aloud a print-out of her Dad’s Christmas e-mail round-robin, with a doomed attempt to stitch a couple of her Mum’s catchphrases, and the ‘female stand-up’ box is resolutely ticked with a weak sex joke in the intro.

The main crux of the show is also the main fault - it is basically an hour of other peoples’ anecdotes, and not especially funny ones, told with the nervous demeanour of a schoolkid doing a presentation in front of the class. The few glimpses we see of the Catie Wilkins who is a comedienne - the Catie Wilkins who wins Comedy Store gongs and tours the country - are in the disappointingly brief ad libs and tangents that stray away from the stuff about her parents.

By Joel Golby

Catie Wilkins is on at 9pm tonight, Sheephaven Bay, 7.30pm. Read more Camden Fringe reviews.