For an hour about generational trauma and inheritance, Kemah Bob’s Love Child never feels bleak. It’s a buoyant and upbeat set which makes life feel like opportunities desperate to be seized and plays to the Texan comic’s strengths.
Compared to her debut hour (2024’s Miss Fortunate), which saw the comic in a dark, dark place, Love Child is breezy even when talking about child poverty and absent parents. With tongue-in-cheek lines about drug use and sharing sex toys, skanking along to her granddad’s music and an easy rapport with her audience, it’s a joy to be in Bob’s company.
The overarching theme of finally learning how to grow up, but keeping hold of childlike wonder and a sense of adventure, hits even harder when Bob shares her grandma’s wise words. The first in her family allowed to indulge in spreading her wings, the sentiment will surely resonate with audiences and artists from global majority and other marginalised backgrounds at this festival and beyond, being here without ever thinking they’d get the chance.
Kemah Bob: Love Child, Pleasance Courtyard, until 30 Aug (not 19, 26), 6.50pm