Anna Akana @ Pleasance Courtyard

Make no bones about it, Anna Akana’s personal history is a pretty dark one. She’s very upfront about the fact (as a YouTuber, her most famous video deals with suicide), leaning into it and watching her audience root down in their discomfort as she slowly unfurls a series of very unfortunate events. 

These events have clearly informed Akana’s wickedly bleak sense of humour, doubling down on harrowing moments and punctuating some of her darkest jokes with a childish ‘lol hehe’. Her response diffuses the tension, giving her audience the permission they crave to laugh at all the shit that’s been thrown her way. Her onstage sweetness juxtaposes well with the heinous things she says, but sometimes it’s not quite enough to counterbalance it – where there should be laughs from a punchline, there’s awkward titters in their place.

For some, Akana’s style might feel like a detached, cold response to the things which have happened to her, but the show is undeniably full of humanity. The snapshots of her mum talking about all the weird stuff she’s eaten, her dad’s interesting retirement plans and the memento she keeps of her sister – all strange in isolation, but make perfect sense on a human level. Human too are the small details she tells us about these life events, from her sister’s love of dance and her begrudging friends, to the personality differences between her two (!) stalkers. Each lends a new authenticity to what could be dismissed as unbelievable happenings.

It Gets Darker does sometimes cross the line into too bleak, but the comic’s winning smile saves us on several occasions, especially when you remember these are her real, lived experiences. Ultimately, it’s an hour of catharsis – for Anna Akana, her family and for us too.

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Anna Akana: It Gets Darker, Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), until 24 Aug (not 19), 5.30pm, £8.50-13