"Jo Caulfield - Cruel To Be Kind" - 4 Stars (from FEST Magazine) According to a brief perusal of the Edinburgh Fringe guide, there are 84 'geniuses' on offer at this years festival, and while Jo Caulfield may not be Einstein after this assured performance she must be surely be regarded in the highest echelons of comedic academia.
From the outset this is a display that sees the crowd laughing from beginning to end, with Caulfield ploughing through her set at breakneck speed, never giving herself time to gather breath.
The one lull comes with a Beyoncé gag that betrays Caulfield's fan base as a slightly naff, middle-aged Radio 4 loving bunch who seem a tad bemused by the notion of dancing to 'Crazy in Love' but by this stage the audience are so deeply in her pocket its a mere irrelevance.
Caufield tackles sex and the loss of virginity in a manner that is racy enough to titillate but isn't unnecessarily blue. In another section, she tells a hilarious spoof fairytale, delivered with impeccable comic timing.
With such an array of new talent on offer at the Fringe it can often be tempting to take a gamble on an unknown entity so you can have your 'I-saw-them-before-they-were-big' moment. But if you want to remove that element of risk then you could do far worse than to take a punt on arguably one of the finest female comics on offer.
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