Review: Evelyn Mok – Bubble Butt

Fest embraces the uncomfortable with Swedish Chinese comic Evelyn Mok

★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
Published 14 Aug 2018
33330 large
39658 original

Born of Chinese parentage and Swedish by upbringing, Evelyn Mok is also, by her own admission "plus size, bisexual and lactose intolerant".

Though she can blend into society she doesn’t feel she fully fits in and so, over her thirty years, has learnt to embrace the uncomfortable.

At the top of the show she expresses how she’s keen to break through white middle class British reserve and have all those awkward conversations we usually strive to avoid. Mok certainly is deliciously frank, within a short time into the show she has expressed the havoc that the recent hot weather has been causing in the gusset of her pants – a description she drops in a few times during the set as a metaphor for extra discomfort. And why shouldn’t we hear it? We hear about blokes sweaty balls on a regular basis and seem to be ridiculously squeamish when it comes to the female equivalent.

It’s a good test of the level of the room and a way of easing us in gently. Mok doesn’t mince words confessing to preferring cake to cock and teasingly using some Chinese racist terms and stereotypes.

But the big revelation is signposted by another close to the bone gag at the beginning about abuse, which turns out to be another #MeToo moment. It’s truly alarming how many women have these stories to reveal this year, but conversely wonderful that they now feel able to tell them to others, night after night. Mok’s is particularly poignant however as she hasn’t told her parents yet.