Catherine Cohen’s last full show in London was in March 2020. She was primed for a sold out run, but by the time the reviews of the opening night appeared the next morning, Cohen was already hightailing it back to her New York home to avoid being locked down in the UK.
The winner of the 2019 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer is finally back and touring here with her new show Come For Me, but only had a one night stand in Hackney, leaving lucky ticketholders as well as those unable to secure seats, eager for more.
Cohen is now 31 – “one of the oldest ages you can legally be” – and this feels like the comedic equivalent of second album territory, with the rising star exploring her personal state of play. Correction. Let’s make that exceedingly personal. Songs and stories include reflections on the technical intricacies of sex tapes, an account of freezing her eggs and a vivid anecdote about a Californian road trip involving random nudity.
If oversharing was an Olympic event Cohen would permanently top the podium. She worries flirtatiously regarding the length of her skirt, she is concerned that her therapist is too young. Each issue come with a wry, ironic look. Her outlook is absurd and Cohen knows this better than anybody else.
She sets out her stall as the ultimate millennial narcissist from the start with a song about constantly requiring validation and having a “void” that needs to be filled. Self-indulgent to the max, but Cohen’s mix of music and chat combined with swaggering and sashaying dance moves is winningly funny.
The hashtag-heavy humour could become tiresome if her personality did not sell the material so well. Her brief foray into poetry is twee but the cabaret-style numbers, accompanied by pianist Frazer Hadfield (introduced with a withering – “he wants me dead”) are consistently infectious. When Cohen starts to strum a guitar she quips that she “once saw a guy play one of these”.
This is someone who sees their entire life as potential content. Everything is grist to the confessional mill. “Do it for the memoir,” she sings. Maybe, though, she is starting to hold some things back. Heading home I checked what she had posted recently on Twitter. It turned out that she has closed her account.
I panicked. Is this candour all an act? Is Cohen an elaborate comic character like the Pub Landlord? I double-checked TikTok and Instagram. She is very much still active online. But much more of a thrill onstage.
