August 18, 2026  EdFringe Review

Review of 1979: Persianality Disorder

Sepideh Kaav’s solo dark comedy show, 1979: Persianality Disorder, is a mixed bag of genuinely hilarious jokes and jokes that shock the audience into silence. An Iranian woman who now lives in Germany, Kaav explores her culture, controversial politics, and ‘woke’ topics with confidence and control. Though late to the stage, Kaav warms up the audience immediately with a quip about her visa being delayed. This impressive ability to perform on the spot continues throughout the show, as Kaav navigates audience reactions and awkward silences with ease. She is conversational with her delivery, speaking to the audience with a casualness that makes it easy to listen. If a joke doesn’t land the way she has planned, Kaav skilfully makes light of it and finds a way to segue into her next joke. Though advertised as a dark comedy show, that is still not enough to prepare for how truly dark and offensive it is. Kaav comes out swinging with jokes about her Iranian upbringing and the stereotypes against Iran, and she does a good job at towing the line while staying funny. However, the show deteriorates as it goes on into something that crosses lines in all directions as she covers topics such as 9/11, Jews, Russians, incest, God, and non-binary people with a flippancy that weakens humour, if any, hidden within them. It seems she is saying these things just to shock people, rather than to entertain. On top of this, she drops two r-slurs that are completely out of place and tasteless. There are some good jokes mixed in, but the bombs are hard to ignore. However, it has to be said that Kaav has true comedic potential. She delivers her jokes with an ease that comes to a much more experienced comedian. She has some excellent jokes that have the audience in stitches, and I think with some refinement, her darker jokes could steal the show. Her segments centring Iran and being a ‘personality hire’ are the most memorable, as they perfectly capture the essence of dark comedy while making it easy to laugh along. 1979: Persianality Disorder is undoubtedly entertaining, for the most part. Definitely not for the faint of heart, I would caution against attending without any knowledge of what the show is about. With some tweaks it has potential to go very far, and I can see Kaav as a very successful comedian. She has a true talent for comedy and I look forward to seeing what she does next. The gems within 1979: Persianality Disorder make it a show worth seeing, but beware of the jokes that take it too far. Click Here

August 18, 2026 Fest

Article about 1979: Persianality Disorder

Interview: Comedians in Conflict

On February 28th, Sepideh Kaav was in a Berlin taxi, on her way to a gig, when news broke of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death in a US-Israeli airstrike. The Iranian stand-up wrote a swift response before taking the stage. “And that was definitely an interesting experience,” she recalls. “Delivering the news and then immediately delivering a joke. Up until we’ve cracked the first joke, such shocking things feel unreal.” As discussed in her Fringe debut, 1979: Persianality Disorder, Kaav grew up in Tehran’s post-revolution Islamic theocracy, “where being a woman you don’t have certain freedoms” and she was arrested by the morality police for her student dress. Yet she’d already been turned on to stand-up by US counterculture icon George Carlin. “It really resonated with me,” she recalls. “I would pretend I was doing it in the shower but I never thought I could actually do it.” That changed when she moved to Germany in 2021. As an immigrant, she faced racism for the first time and was agitated by Western contentment. Unable to forget the “pain and suffering” she’d left behind, comedy became an outlet to “scream my anger”. However, when the American offensive began, “it changed the way audiences receive my jokes.”Continuing, she says: “I want to show that Iranian women are women. So I try to be relatable. But it feels like everything I say becomes geopolitical. For many people in Europe, Iran was an afterthought. But now it’s so real, everything has become a little more direct.” She’s anxious to not be seen as “leveraging” the conflict for personal gain. But when she couldn’t reach her mother after a round of bombing, “I was upset, I needed to address that on stage”. She won’t claim to represent Iran, “that’s very dangerous territory” because there are “so many different opinions, both in Iran and the diaspora”. But she believes she’s found sufficient balance, “the right path. Because I get hit from all sides”. Click Here

August 18, 2026  Entertainment Now

Review of Eat Pray Cult

This show is about a cult that seems like a cult but isn’t actually, because they don’t do cult things (apart from being a big group of naked people living in the California desert!) Throughout this one-person stand-up memoir, Amy delves into her childhood and the lacklustre way her family goes around being Christian, going from attending church twice a week to having non-god believing quotes stuck to their fridge. She takes us on the very intimate journey of how she ended up joining this cult-like group, including the divorce of her ex-husband and her roommate’s pet chihuahua. This ‘cult’ is completely self-sustaining, even building their own houses to live in for the couple months that they were there (the cult is seasonal, naturally). Here, she describes the various structural problems of her shack, for example, the lack of rafters so the roof ended inside of the building instead of outside, letting rainwater straight in. Not ideal. This beautifully unique show definitely deserves to be in a bigger venue than a basement, but it does add to the slightly creepy vibe we get when we hear the word ‘cult’. Amy Brown’s cult might not have been the stereotypical sex and death kind of organisation we tend to see in Netflix documentaries or news channels, but the lack of flushing toilets definitely doesn’t do it any favours. Click Here

May 24, 2026

Review of Who Killed the Plot

Everything a Fringe show should be; eclectic , unique, entertaining , and delivered by people passionate about their idea and presentation. Glad I spotted the show and made my way to the event. It's not every day one can watch the drama unfold comedically as love, death, and crocodiles explain who killed the plot

May 15, 2026

Review of Who Killed the Plot

Everything a Fringe show should be

Everything a Fringe show should be; eclectic , unique, entertaining , and delivered by people passionate about their idea and presentation. Glad I spotted the show and made my way to the event. It's not every day one can watch the drama unfold comedically as love, death, and crocodiles explain who killed the plot

May 14, 2026

Article about Who Killed the Plot

Excellent and funny

Excellent and funny improv at a great venue. Loved it x