EdFringe Review: Teresa Livingstone: Delighted

Never underestimate the power of celebrity endorsement to bring a critic to your show, or more specifically Janey Godley. So, thanks Janey for introducing me to the terrific Teresa Livingstone, whose claim to being Northern Ireland’s ‘premier musical comedian’ seems highly plausible.

What a terrific performer. More than funny enough without her keyboard but with a knack for an excellent comedic song, Teresa is so easy to like and even easier to laugh at. Her schtick is just so relatable, grounded in her 40+ years of life as a woman in Northern Ireland, but packed with universal truths.

Dating in middle life does invite a particularly existential type of flirting, gyms are full of people who have ‘won’ the gym, and life will never tire of giving you exactly what you asked for. There may not be too much mileage left in some bits such as slimming clubs, and pets with human names, but she sells it all with warmth and genuine delight. Also, her follow-up ode to dead pets is a corker.

Poor Teresa lost her voice a few days from the end of her debut Fringe run this year, but thanks to a metric tonne of honey, and the grace of the comedy deities, it had recovered a good deal for her final show. Indeed from an iconic celebration of ‘Cake and Wine’, to the totally earnest ‘Nice Ladies’, and a deliciously dry ‘I’m Delighted For You’, she delivered each with aplomb.

It’s genuinely difficult to make people laugh with music – many have tried, but few have made a career from it. However, Teresa has the gift (no doubt a product of lots of hard work) of delivering punchlines, well-phrased, and well-timed as lyrics. All of this she delivers within genuinely well-crafted and catchy numbers.

Teresa’s anecdotes are also a thing of legend, be it as a music teacher in an all-boys school, or making bold breakfast decisions before grabbing the SeaCat high-speed ferry. A dive back into her TV-immortalised brush with teenaged pop star fame during The Troubles is just the icing on the cake.

Ultimately, a comedian is judged based on how much they make their audience laugh, and Teresa Livingstone has hers in fits regularly. There’s no trauma dumping here, no excessive sophistication, just classic observational and confessional comedy delivered by a particularly musical comedian.

Amazingly, this is the first time Teresa has appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe. She has the star power to garner a healthy cult Fringe following, so let’s hope she takes the slow boat back to Scotland next year.