Jordan Gray @ Assembly George Square

“That laugh tells me half of you bought tickets without getting the pun.” Jordan Gray is right – a large portion of the audience are now looking down in shame after hearing that the title of her show Is It a Bird? refers not just to Superman, but also to being transgender and from Essex. It’s the start of a trend of underestimating Gray that will last all evening.

If you remember Gray’s vocal talents from her stint on The Voice, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that they form a central part of her show. She treats us to four laugh-till-you-cry songs from behind, or occasionally above, the piano. When sat by her keys, she adopts a sort of alter ego (appropriate, given the show’s focus on superheroes and their civilian selves), but instead of donning a cape she simply becomes enamoured with how clever and talented she is (she regularly interrupts her own songs with yelps of delight or lip-biting visual asides to show us as much). It’s a tear-jerking delight when the hour culminates in a song explaining that her audience are to blame for inflating her ego (and that she’s simply better than us). The joke was no doubt funny on 4 August but has taken on a delicious second layer now that she’s received five stars from everyone from The Guardian to The Telegraph as well as a freshly-minted Best Comedy Show nomination.

Gray’s delivery verges on manic from the second the lights go down, and whether she’s wrestling a Japanese wolf dog (a Shikoku if you’d like to know) or singing about making love to a potato, she keeps the audience onboard. She repeatedly asks us to “stay with her on this one”, but this isn’t necessary – she already has us hooked. We watch in wide-eyed amazement and then, having been charged up by her energy for an hour, go off into the night like little wind-up toys fuelled by pure euphoria.

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Jordan Gray: Is It A Bird?, Assembly George Square Studios (The Box), run sold out
Extra shows at Assembly George Square (Palais du Variete), 26 & 27 Aug, 4.45pm, £10.50-11.50