Words: Calum Baxter
Image: Orlando Gill
4 stars
2019 Scottish Comedy Awards Best Newcomer, Amy Matthews, returns to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year with her new stand-up hour which incorporates three specific definitions of toast:
- (verb) Apply heat and impart irreversible damage. Toast cannot be bread again
- (noun, informal) Something that is finished, over, or doomed to be: A state of finality
- (noun) The act of honouring a sentiment: Raising a glass, often to new beginnings
Due to her alexithymia, (a condition charactered by a difficulty identifying, understanding, and expressing your own emotions) Matthews likens herself to a hotel rotary toaster that takes an age to deliver your breakfast. She highlights a myriad of examples in which she feels aggrieved that she did not have a visceral reaction to including the death of her grandmother and the infuriation at a passenger leaving their bag on a seat on a crowded train.
Having navigated through a series of alcoholic adulterous boyfriends with addictive personalities, Amy Matthews finds herself in her first same-sex relationship. After reconciling her previous people-pleasing tendencies there is optimism in the air as she no longer feels doomed to repeat the same unhealthy patterns. She finishes her set with a fitting toast to Lily Allen who, much like Amy Matthews, found her voice again by articulating her feelings after a breakup and some self-reflection. An incredibly enjoyable hour full of wit, emotional intelligence and insightful observations which is well worth seeing.
Amy Matthews: Definitions of Toast
O’Neill’s (The Tron) at Monkey Barrel Comedy
15.00
8 -30 August