Readers of theQR can be under no illusions as to my high regard for Marjolein Roberston. Shetland’s young gift to storytelling, she knows how to keep an audience under her spell. This proves no different when taking to the stage of The Stand for an hour of Stand Up Comedy with ‘Marj’.
Resolutely no less unique in front of a comedy club crowd, she soundtracks the show with a low-key ‘Dungeoncore’ track. Her set is tightly constructed, a weaving of story, gags, and self-reflection, opening with some delightfully barmy observations on Shetland life. However, Marjolein has big plans for this show, explaining she wanted to write it last year, but just wasn’t ready.
However though the show is deep and meaningful, it’s also very funny. Robertson has a strong sense of the surreal, but kudos to her for resisting pressures to be a ‘nice girl’. Yes, you can expect a truly outre gag regarding her relief that fish don’t have hands, but she also has a sex life, and just as male comics have been, figuratively, pulling their out for decades, so can she. So bring on the morning-after pill schtick and make the crowd roar.
Robertson opens her main theme gently, running out of an Edinburgh park late at night, helping ‘nice’ gentleman move their beds into dark alleys, and meeting ‘The French Man’. This dalliance mined for some age-gap hilarity, is a jumping off point further back in time, to a previous partner, ‘The Fisherman’.
I think it will be a cold day in hell when Marjolein ever takes a stage and doesn’t tell a folk tale, and ‘Marj’ is no exception. So, twining through the comedy, and bleaker observations is the story of The Selkie Wife, told in episodes she segways into with little warning. As a child, she explains, she resented the Selkie Wife for her ultimate abandonment of her children and husband, but now, older and wiser, she sees it differently
It could be too dark, the genuine horror she summons up could sink the whole thing, however she holds onto comedy for dear life at all times. From the darkest moments, Roberston will find a punchline with defiant joy. The show is, perhaps, a little imbalanced, the ‘comedy’ and ‘testimony’ sections just a little distinct, but this would be a tough stand-up show for anyone to make.
Ultimately, Marjolein Robertson continues to prove herself a tremendous stage talent, and a ticket I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend whichever stage she takes to.
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