Georgie Morrell: The Morrell High Ground

★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
33329 large
121329 original
Published 13 Aug 2017
33332 large
121329 original

Blind in her left eye, and for a year, blind in her right too, that's not even been the sum total of Georgie Morrell's physical impairment, with her family dogged by additional health issues as well. Still, the caustic stand-up, known as "The Duchess" to her nearest and dearest, isn't seeking to be pitied or patronised, revealing herself to have been a petulant teenager who took her frustrations out on the doctors who cared for her. In part, a series of touching snapshots of a family rallying round itself, The Morrell High Ground is also a mea culpa and veneration of the NHS, with the comic denouncing changes to disability benefits as they grow ever more tangled in bureaucratic red tape.

Were it not for the focus of her eyes (or otherwise) much of this show would simply feel like a leaf through the family photo album. That's even while Morrell varies it up and keeps her spirit buoyed with images of the model David Gandy recast as a hunky doctor for fantasy purposes, murmuring motivational compliments at her, with the photogenic cast of ER embodying her real-life physicians.

Morrell has become a bit of a pin-up too, at least with some of the keyboard creeps who've caught her recent television and radio appearances, their responses to her perceived vulnerability not undermining the impression that like all stand-ups she enjoys the attention. Throughout, she argues her corner with self-aware humour, not least when acknowledging that she's been a bit of a nightmare occasionally.