Suzi Ruffell: Common

She may stride onto the stage to the strains of Pulp’s Common People, but that’s pretty much the only predictable thing about Suzi Ruffell’s third solo Fringe show. The Portsmouth-born standup squeezes much of her life so far into this hour, from a roller-coaster upbringing to her sometimes unexpectedly rock ‘n’ roll adventures as a standup in London.

Common is chiefly about her working-class roots, and a family that’s comedy gold. Well, they may be quite demure in real life, but Ruffell certainly wrings some fine material out of their more out-there activities, which eventually involve smuggling and an Italian prison.

There are bits of relevant politics along the way, including a fine observation about why her mum would be a better chancellor than George Osborne, who now isn’t the chancellor either, admittedly—damn these Tory machinations messing with people’s Edinburgh shows—and some glorious stuff about how her parents reacted to her coming out (pretty well, with occasional weirdness). Packed with well-honed gags, the show speeds past like her dad’s Porsche, which lasted for about three weeks too.

Ruffell admits to living a middle-class life these days, but on stage she clearly has the common touch, able to tackle sometimes fairly niche issues and keep a diverse audience in constant giggles. There are some cracking pull-back-and-reveals, and a couple of lines that you may well take away with you for everyday use. Which is surely worth some folding quids in the bucket.