Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Jena Friedman: Motherf*cker
Jena Friedman
Genre: Comedy, Stand-Up, Storytelling
Venue: Hive 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Jena Friedman’s new Fringe show covers grief, motherhood, and politics, all through the lens of comedy and the viewpoint of an American.
Review
An American flag-waving moment to the soundtrack of American country singer Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud to Be An American” as Jena Friedman enters wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Thus begins a riveting hour of brilliant comedy. She has immediately won over her audience and owns that stage.
Jena Friedman’s new Fringe show covers grief, motherhood, and politics, all through the lens of comedy and the viewpoint of an American. Friedman’s years of working for America’s top political comedy royalty, including Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart and David Letterman, have sharpened her wit and her observational skills. She is sassy, smart, quick-witted, and very funny. It is a laugh a minute as she charms the audience.
She observes that it is getting crazy in America. It is a scary time for the U.S. She relates an incident at the border with Canada. Her topical material is very pointed: RFK and vaccines, comparing Trump to a despot, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, election integrity, the pro-life lobby, and more. Although the subjects are serious, there is always a funny twist at the end of the topic. The style seems in line with the U.S. late night comedy writers, with a simple buildup then a zinger that gets a huge laugh. Despite the fact she is from California and the political jokes are about American figures, the Scottish audience seemed to relate to everything she covered.
Friedman delves into motherhood, her own and her relationship with her mother. This writing is drawn from her experience of motherhood, from conception to negotiating our complex world for her child. She addresses childbirth and breastfeeding (who could have thought those could be funny, but it works). She takes us down the journey of the complicated relationship with her own mother and her grief in losing the woman with whom she was so close. We empathize with her emotions but this part of the presentation doesn’t kill the overall upbeat mood of the show.
Jena Friedman is an Oscar-nominated comedian and writer. She has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Conan, and in the Sundance hit film Pam Spring. She earned an Oscar nomination as co-writer of the film Borat 2: Subsequent Movie Film, a brilliant comedy sendup. Her book, Not Funny, has the subtitle “and other things I’ve been called”, in her self-deprecating humour style. Her Ted Talk is entitled The Jokes AI Won’t Tell.
Seeing this show once is not enough. Although you will catch all of the jokes, you will want to hear them again – and again. Every line hits. She is so intuitive, such a great observer of human behaviour and insightful analyst of the political landscape that you want to not only remember her stories but the way in which she imparts them. Highly recommended.
