Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Leslie Gold: Tall Girl Energy
Leslie Gold
Genre: Comedy
Venue: Laughing Horse: Counting House
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Leslie Gold has an outsized presence for her petite frame. This stand-up hour, with a feminist edge, examines society’s bewilderment with female confidence.
Review
New Jersey native-turned-Londoner Leslie Gold is back at the Fringe with an hour exploring her signature concept: Tall Girl Energy. It refers to the large presence she embodies despite standing just five feet tall. Throughout her life, people have remarked that she doesn’t seem short– a subtle way of expressing surprise that someone so small could have so much confidence. The show unpacks what is going on in that projection.
Gold uses Tall Girl Energy as a gateway into a larger feminist discussion around who we, as a society, expect- and don’t expect- to take up space. She connects this to unconscious biases that surface in everything from everyday encounters to large-scale safety measures and structural norms about who gets protected.
Gold is tapping into a vital cultural conversation, and she holds the floor using an approachable, conversational style that invites curiosity and consideration. She seamlessly blends jokes with storytelling, and infuses the hour with an observant, analytical edge.
Gold highlights how both her mother and grandmother, two other short women with tall girl energy, helped to shape both her stature and character. She talks about how her grandmother instilled in her that “words matter”, which becomes a refrain Gold smartly uses to direct our attention to important moments of the show. A bit more unpacking of what she thinks her grandmother meant by this, and how it shaped her worldview, could further anchor the theme. Gold then analyzes terms like “girl boss” and “short king” that reveal some of our unconscious biases around gender roles and expectations, and power. It’s Carlin-esque, adds extra punch, and more of this would further elevate the piece.
A great irony of the show, whether intentional or not, is that, if it were not for the subject matter, the audience may not clock how short Leslie Gold is- that’s how fully she embodies tall girl energy. It’s as if she’s creating a feminist archetype before your eyes.
If anything, the show’s one soft spot is that it feels slightly more like a concept-in-process than a fully excavated thesis. Gold sets the table beautifully, but one wonders what might happen if she took a few bigger risks- expanded her scope, dug further into her personal history, or pushed the linguistic analysis just a little sharper. The material is strong, but she has the presence and intellect to go even deeper.
This show is Recommended for its vision, cultural critique, and boldness in owning what it is.
