Words: Calum Baxter
Image: Samantha Rae Brooks

4 stars

Rachel Kaly is a comedian, writer and performer based in Brooklyn New York. Her first televised appearance was at the age of 5 on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. She started performing stand-up when she was 9 before studying playwriting in high school and college and training in improv and sketch comedy. She has provided tour support for Joe Pera and Conner O’Malley. This month she brings us her debut hour at the Edinburgh Fringe which endeavours to explore in her own words why she is
“so mentally ill.”

With a look back on her childhood and adolescence, she focuses on her fraught relationship with
her father as well as her search to find a solution to her mental health issues. Rachel’s delivery is wry and irreverent and blunt at times. It’s a very personal show and one that the audience appreciated a great deal. Her talent is clear to see and the use of a screen for a few aspects of the show emphasised her brilliant comic timing, particularly in a segment of the show where she indulges the audience in a game of Mad Libs to write an email to her estranged father.

Granted, this show with not be for everyone because of the potentially triggering subject matter. But it is an important and poignant story that needs to be told and heard, and should be sought out by those who are willing to be challenged by something out of their comfort zone.

Rachel Kaly: Hospital Hour
Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker Two
18:55
Aug 6 –11, 13 – 25