Taylor Glenn: Reverse Psycomedy

Stuck in an anti-social 11.30pm timeslot upstairs in the Gilded Balloon, American Taylor Glenn spends a lot of time telling us about her life before she became a comedian. As a practicing psychotherapist in both the US and the UK, Glenn regales her audience with the particulars of the job and how it affects both her patients and herself. She has a clear point to make about how it’s a more accepted profession across the water, and she teases us with some confidentiality-breaching gossip about celebrities she has worked with.

Taylor is an excellent storyteller, and her hour of anecdotes and observations is extremely polished from start to finish. There’s a lovely comparison between the job of the stand-up and that of the therapist, in particular the clock-watching and the need to wrap everything up within a “perfect hour”. However, no matter how affable and endearing her onstage persona is, there’s no getting away from the fact that the comedy could be a lot stronger, and it sometimes feels like many of the more interesting connections between her chosen professions aren’t explored in enough detail to extract some really worthwhile material from them.

A worthwhile hour, definitely, but not outstanding.