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Andi Osho: All the Single Ladies
Published on Thursday, 11 August 2011
4

4 stars

Pleasance Courtyard (venue website)
Comedy
3-15, 17-29 Aug, 6:40pm-7:40pm
Reviewed by Craig Thomson

 Recommended for age 14+ only.

In many ways, Andi Osho sounds like the ideal woman.  She's beautiful, she's funny, she likes football and science-fiction movies.  How can she not get a date?  But such is the premise behind this Fringe hit: one single straight guy from the audience will go out for a drink with Osho after the show, to see if love is in the chilly Edinburgh-in-August air.

Being disqualified on at least two counts, I didn't put myself forward when Osho asked the crowd if there were any prospective suitors in.  Turns out only one person was man enough to admit to being loveless, and so he automatically won the prize.  I don't know if there was usually more of a game to it, but in any case the Blind Date schtick seemed rather incidental to the entertainment.

That's no bad thing, because Osho is a confident, articulate and very funny stand-up comedian.  Her material zips, but remains tightly focussed – what her previous relationships were like, why she's single now, her experience of online dating sites, and so on.  It's a very narrow but deep mine she's carved out here, which suggests either a great comic mind or a lot of experience in the subject, or maybe a bit of both.

Osho is quick and easy, as it were, on stage.  She speaks with loved-up couples in the front rows as if old friends, then just as comfortably considers how far into a relationship one must get before being comfortable passing wind in front of one’s partner.  The audience remained receptive, and the laughs were consistent throughout; but, by the same token, she never quite managed to raise the roof.

She leaves us with a poem, a sort of poignant street meditation on love and relationships, a bittersweet reflection on accepting yourself and others.  How that came across to Kenny, the self-professed 'slag' who was to share the Lady and the Tramp-style spaghetti with Osho, was not confirmed at time of press.

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