You might think the prejudice against women in comedy is now defunct, such is the recent dominance of Bridget Christie, Sara Pascoe, Katherine Ryan et al over the Edinburgh fringe. Consider, then, the evidence adduced by Kiri Pritchard-McLean, director of sketch troupe Gein’s Family Giftshop, who is making her solo Edinburgh debut with Hysterical Woman. In this bold show, Pritchard-McLean explains how women seldom get to appear alongside other women in comedy clubs, and how all-female bills get called “Paralympic nights”. She talks about how she has internalised that thinking; how she’s scared of ever not being funny and letting down all womankind.
She is keenly aware how un-entertaining this risks sounding: it is practically taboo for a female comic to complain about this stuff. Credit to her, then, for making a show that’s raucous and good-humoured without stinting on the protest. Her angle is to consider “women aren’t funny” as a schema, a habit of thought that can’t be defeated by mere evidence. We’ve all got them, and Pritchard-McLean puts her own – her feeling that only black people are good at soul music, for example – to the test too.
So, there is research and there are detours (we meet her chauvinist dad; the staff of her local takeaway, who think she’s a sex worker) to vary the tone. But the focus doesn’t wander, as Pritchard-McLean explores how “female” is treated as a genre, and takes down the Christopher Hitchens argument that men are funny as a mating imperative. Pritchard-McLean – and her male colleagues too, she argues – have loftier ambitions in standup than just getting laid, and in her debut show she begins to realise them.
•At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 29 August (not 15). Box office: 0131-556 6550.
