Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin @ Hoots Nicolson Square

A title like Barefoot Before God should be a great indicator for a show that is raw, confessional, and, yes, laden with Catholic guilt. Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin’s new Fringe hour certainly has that last one, as she’ll repeatedly reference, but as for the rest, it’s lacking in the boldness it should promise. Now, it’s a bold thing to do a show at the Fringe at all, and Ní Shúilleabháin is right to feel accomplished — if only she’d allow herself to be a little more confident in that accomplishment. The moment a joke doesn’t land, she drops it like a hot coal rather than letting it fuel her fire.

Throughout her set, you’ll certainly learn a lot about Ní Shúilleabháin, but it never really goes anywhere. We know she is a queer Irish woman, a child of divorce, and that she dated an incredibly stingy Catalonian woman, but none of these stories come together in any satisfying way. A number of the themes highlighted as integral to the show are quickly forgotten, absorbed by a tangential bit of crowd work. Long past the halfway mark, the show is still finding its feet.

At times, Ní Shúilleabháin’s crowd work seems less of a part of the comedic flow and more of a crutch used in moments where she feels isolated on stage. Barefoot Before God is a show that needs a warm, talkative audience; it’s because of this that, at times, the set feels less like an hour of comedy and more like a meandering conversation in a pub with an overly-forthcoming stranger. Like so many strangers, though, Ní Shúilleabháin has a real charm to her – she just needs a little more time. This show, with a little more development on Ní Shúilleabháin's part, may yet feature amongst the many comedic gems of Edinburgh Fringes to come.

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Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin: Barefoot Before God, Hoots at Nicholson Square (Nic 4), run ended