The defining routine of Lindsey Santoro’s full fringe debut, Pink Tinge, finds her laughing so hard during a smear test that the speculum is impelled clean out of the window, where it kills an unfortunate pensioner passing by. And the bit is Santoro’s show – “just me shouting about my fanny, mainly” – in microcosm: it’s rude, it cleaves to a very familiar standup premise, it leaps in short order from credible to preposterous, and it’s all punctuated by the Brummie’s earthy cackle as she delights in sharing with us another nugget of autobiographical filth and fun.
You can see why the pink-haired comic is shortlisted for the fringe’s best newcomer award. She’s unpretentious, uninhibited and treats her crowd immediately as if she is their best friend. There’ll be a big audience for her standup – though it may not be made up of comedy aficionados, to whom some of the material (“I’ve got a fat fanny, haven’t I?”) will seem a bit first-base. But there’s no denying her craft. It’s a gift to be able to make standup feel this spontaneous and just-for-us. The jokes are vivid too. OK, so her routine about visiting a climbing wall has jumped the shark by the time it reaches its punchline, but “I hit that window with such force, I was stuck on it like a whelk” still delivers a big payload.
Given the role of authenticity in her standup – this coarse, intimate comedy trades on its truthfulness – I find her habit of escalating every routine ad absurdum to be curious. Even acknowledging the impressive gaudiness of her image-making (see the closing routine about dysfunctional sex in a Jacuzzi), for me some of Santoro’s potency leaks into those credibility gaps. I’d rather that, mind you, than the witless “bumhole surprise” section, which is when the relentless bawdiness of Pink Tinge started to pall for this viewer. A later set piece, about the similarities between having a baby and being on crack, offers a little relief. Expect to hear more from Santoro, whose combination of raucous manner and Rabelaisian hilarity has got popular written all over it.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August
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