August 19, 2026 at Assembly George Square, Gordon Aikman Theatre
Susie McCabe has had a terrible year. Her marriage ended, her dad died (but I wouldn’t call this a Dead Dad show, not enough tears), she had to arrange a traditional Catholic funeral while being an atheist, menopause is happening, and she’s had to move house and then immediately accommodate an unexpected long-term guest. Her 2025 show was about having a heart attack, and fans might have thought she’d struggle to follow that up, if she wants to match it for levels of painful stuff to talk about. It turns out that was no problem.
This is your classic “here’s how my life has been for the past 12-18 months” hour, that’s common among established comedians like McCabe, who have an audience that come back year after year. This was one of the few shows I’ve seen at this festival where most of the audience voices had Scottish accents – McCabe has built up a loyal following of people who like seeing a working class Glaswegian talk about what that life is like, people who like seeing a butch lesbian talk about what that life is like, and some people who are both and highly enthusiastic about the representation.
Of course, when she’s actually on stage, McCabe doesn’t act like she’s just a bit of “representation”. She tells very natural stories about her life – crude stories, honest stories, messy stories, funny stories. She gets angry about manosphere radicalization and about the pains of menopause and about religious homophobia and about catfishers on dating apps. She gets angry about many things, and titled the show accordingly, but I wouldn’t call it an angry show, and I definitely wouldn’t call it a bleak show, despite the amounts of painful stuff in it. She laughs about everything.
This show also features some opinions, many of which are rooted in relatively “old school” ideas, but through a left-wing lens. One routine about “kids these days” felt fairly tired to me, but then it went in an unexpected direction, becoming an opinion with far more nuance than you’ll normally get in a stand-up comedy show.
It ends on a genuinely sweet story, and the whole thing covers family and love and how we can all do our best within the rage.
Dave Baillie