COMEDY Sarah Keyworth: Lost Boy

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), until 28 August

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Sarah Keyworth has a lovely dry understated wit, which she uses to dissect language, relationships and human behaviour. Since comedy shut down and re-opened she has experienced a broken heart, then mended it again. She’s taken up therapy, although she retains a refreshingly doubtful view about the process. Keyworth takes us through the day-today realities of her life with neat and beautifully constructed stories, which lead to big unexpected bursts of laughter. Her stories are short on detail, strong on logic and her deliberately lowkey delivery and super precise timing gives her comedy a smooth unruffled certainty.

Her girlfriend’s peculiar way with a metaphor and her therapist’s way of ending sessions become a running joke, which Keyworth exploits to full effect. Like almost every other comic on the Fringe this August, Keyworth has been diagnosed with ADHD – but at least she manages to write a truly funny joke about it.

She’s not one for displays of her own suffering. She’s here to make us laugh and she does. But, there is a hidden emotional charge in her narrative which gradually reveals itself. The title of her show has a double meaning. Keyworth is so assured, upbeat and confident on stage you don’t realise the threads of all her stories have a common emotional connection. But once you see it you can’t unsee it.

Here is a story of loss and friendship that will steal your heart away. She’s crafted the show the way she has for a very particular reason and she has a final twist which brings the audience to its feet, makes us laugh, whoop and roar with delight.

CLAIRE SMITH