Sarah Keyworth @ Pleasance Courtyard

Much of Sarah Keyworth’s material draws upon the relationships with people in her life: her girlfriend, her cousin, even her therapist. She has a way of finding humour in her own quirks and those of the people around her in a way that never punches down or mocks. Instead, she celebrates the peculiarities inherent to simply being human and forging bonds with one another. 

References are made to one friend in particular, Paul, in the past tense several times throughout the show’s first half. It is eventually revealed to us that he has passed. On grief, Keyworth muses that going through it when those around you aren’t grieving feels like “being at a party when everyone’s on ecstasy and you’re just trying to find your phone”. 

Her delivery is assured, and Keyworth takes the opportunity to banter with the audience from time to time. There’s one joke, she tells us, that she and Paul loved to the point that once she couldn’t get through it in a set for laughing so much. “It’s not a great one though”, she warns.  

She tells it. It is indeed not great. But it’s so ridiculous that it goes all the way round back to funny, and we all end up laughing anyway. It’s a lovely intimate moment where we feel like we’re all invited to be in on the joke.  

The end of the show brings one final moment both outrageously silly and oddly, deeply moving all at once. No spoilers though. You’ll simply have to catch this wholly unique, poignant, and silly set on love, life, and death for yourself.

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Sarah Keyworth: Lost Boy, Pleasance Courtyard (Cabaret Bar), until 28 Aug (not 16), 5:40pm, £13.50