Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Michelle Brasier: It’s a Shame We Won’t Be Friends Next Year
Michelle Brasier
Genre: Comedy
Venue: Gilded Balloon - at the Museum
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Multiple award-winning comedian Michelle Brasier is back at the Fringe with her latest uproarious show.
Review
This is not Australian comic Michelle Brasier’s first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her one woman ‘comedy-as-philosophy’ shows, Average Bear, Reform and Legacy have sold out seasons across Melbourne, Sydney, London and Edinburgh. In her latest show: It’s a Shame We Won’t Be Friends Next Year, Brasier examines the (all too human) thing we do when we receive a negative comment (like she did from a boy right before starting high school). We ruminate on it….sometimes for a looong time, and it makes us feel SHAME.
Brasier has oodles of warm personality that she launches at you with joyful gusto in an almost manic, yet delightful way. She sings, laughs, jokes and bounces about the stage as she confesses her hurts, grief, flaws, guilts and shame. It’s an art form she has perfected. She makes sure you’re too busy laughing to ever need to cry. This allows Brasier to be unabashedly honest about her harsh inner critique and sometimes childish thoughts as she delves into why negative comments have such a hold on us—but no matter how bizarre her reaction is to any unfavorable comment/action/event, Brasier quickly shoots herself down before anyone else can. Embracing her own vulnerability in a comic fashion is most likely what allows Brasier to cope with the tough stuff she’s had to endure in her young life. She is determined to live full-throttle, out loud and no shame is going to stop that.
Brasier has an incredible singing voice to boot, and I don’t say that lightly. She is damn good. Sprinkled throughout her hour long performance are songs she wrote for the show starting off with what she calls her “Big Fuck-Off Opening Number.” Her partner, Tim Lancaster accompanies her on guitar and throws in the occasional voice of counter balance. Although his part isn’t huge, he adds a solid grounding presence for Michelle to rest on.
This show will leave you uplifted, grinning, and urging to go and give Brasier a big, warm hug… and, if you like, you could purchase her memoir “My Brother’s Ashes are in Sandwich Bag” which you should, because it too, is simultaneously side-splitting and heart-wrenching.
