Jo Coffey: Not 25

“I’m being drowned out by Celtic again,” smiles Jo Coffey. Ah, the glamour. Coffey, "the circuit’s fourth shortest comic", she reckons, is indeed forced to compete with intermittent roars from this pub’s football-watching clientele, but isn’t fazed. She gets pretty loud too, most notably while playing a Croatian Amy Winehouse impersonator who winds up screaming at a dog.

Coffey is one of several acts who’ve gone for a mock Adele album cover for their poster this year, and here the title relates to a significant age she’s about to hit. Not 25 is a trawl through the comic’s life so far, which has certainly been eventful. In fact, it’s a little curious that she went for that ambiguous title and hasn’t made more of her unique history. 

This show could easily have been called I Lived with One Direction, which she did while working in reality TV. Or Nearly Yoda’s Wife, which she almost was, having been invited to audition by Star Wars’ highest-profile short person, Warwick Davis. 

Unfortunately, rather than weaving these fascinating stories—and there are more—into one event-filled narrative, Coffey really just uses them to introduce a series of characters, which invariably don’t work. Just as you’re marvelling at some bewildering fact—Yoda was married?—she curtails that tale by wandering off to throw on an outfit. 

Coffey is a natural, confident storyteller, and by just cutting down the characters and upping the anecdotes this show could really make a splash. Which is one benefit of keeping it low-key: there’s always next year.