EDINBURGH 2025: Review: EMILY WILSON: UNDRESSED, Pleasance
One of the funniest women on the planet
If you were lucky enough to attend a performance of Emily Wilson’s last Fringe show, Fixed, then odds are you have been patiently awaiting her return to the Scottish capital for quite some time. Finally, she is back, and she has brought her brand new hour of stand-up with her.
Fixed, which used a mixture of song, dance, video and traditional stand-up to tell the unbelievable story of Emily’s time on X-Factor as a child, was a powerful hour which, rather beautifully, embraced the idea that what goes on the internet stays on the internet. Undressed, Emily’s latest hour, feels very different from what came before.
Whereas Fixed was a streamlined narrative in which the comedy served the story and vice versa, her new show is a much more (appropriately) dressed-down version of her comedy, feeling more relaxed and lucid in its approach, with plenty of back and forth between Emily, her director, and members of the audience.
The title is also clever in the way in which Emily undresses several subjects, such as American politics, sexuality and her relationship with her family. Still making use of her talented musicianship, she continues to grace us with hilarious songs covering all of these topics and more, such as a brilliant ballad about raising a trans daughter as an act of defiance against her Republican parents.
Perhaps Wilson’s greatest gift, aside from her talents as a musician and as a writer, is her stage presence. Incredibly animated and insanely charismatic, the comedian simply can’t help but be funny in everything she says and does. Even when the material isn’t of the highest quality, her ability to make us laugh is unmatched and makes her one of the most naturally funny comedians performing today.
The show isn’t just all laughs, though. There are moments of sincerity which really bring the show and the material together. Specifically, there is a monologue in the closing minutes of the show in which Emily shares a story about how she visited a concentration camp on a recent family trip to Poland. It is a solemn moment in the show that grips the audience, only further proving Wilson’s ability to control an audience. She has the crowd in the palm of her hand. Then, just as the story comes to an end, she closes the show with a joke that juxtaposes the severity of the monologue to such a degree that the audience can’t help but laugh, bringing down the house in the final moments of her show.
Undressed is another brilliant hour from Emily Wilson, undoubtedly one of the funniest women on the planet today. One can only hope that we don’t need to wait another three years before seeing Emily Wilson back in Edinburgh.
Emily Wilson: Undressed was at the Pleasance
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