Review: Avital Ash Workshops Her Suicide Note

A dark sense of humour is found in those with a close proximity to death. Avital Ash's arresting gallows humour recalls the kind of shocking jokes nurses and paramedics make to each other. It can feel good to laugh in death's face.

Ash's own proximity to death starts with the suicide of her mother while Ash was a baby. The title of her debut Edinburgh hour – Avital Ash Workshops Her Suicide Note – tells us how close death is to her own thoughts.

The show is a baring of Ash's soul, profoundly compelling and emotionally affecting. She lays out a complex relationship with her step-mother and explains how her orthodox Jewish upbringing has, at formative times, contributed to harsh and punishing labels given to her; labels misinterpreting the actions of a smart, curious child and teenager.

As the show progresses, Ash tells of drinking blackouts and sexual assault, filling the room with palpable tension. A tension reinforced by the shame Ash feels – which seems to coil tightly around her.

The stream of early jokes become more spread out as Ash gives time to experiences which still seem raw. An hour can't really hold everything she has to say – and the promising device of some collaborative writing with the audience doesn't quite pay off tonight. Yet her openness and sincerity leave a lasting impression. And her talent for a well-written joke, delivered at just the right moment, causes laughter to move through the room like a flashlight across the dark.