EDINBURGH 2026: Review: LORNA ROSE TREEN: NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL CHARACTERS, Pleasance

It's easy to forget how much courage it takes for someone to get up on stage, night after night, and try to make a room full of strangers laugh for an entire hour. Some comedians simply make it look natural; others fill their material with enough gut-wrenching, personal revelations that they get all the plaudits for being “brave” or “fearless.”

But make no mistake, regardless of how personal your show may or may not be, simply getting in front of a mic and sharing your humour with the rest of the world is one of the most intimate things you can possibly share with an audience. With that in mind, one can’t help but be grateful that Lorna Rose Treen ever had the nerve to set foot on stage in the first place.

With Now That's What I Call Characters, Treen brings us a “best of,” bringing some of her finest “characters, songs, content, content, content, costumes and content” back to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Opening the show with a femme fatale character straight out of a film Noir, Lorna introduces us to her wonderfully silly brand of humour. Constantly puffing at fake cigarettes, spitting them out at the audience, and popping in another one, the comic immediately gets the crowd on her side, sending the entire room into fits of laughter. 

The set only gets stranger from there. There is the brace-faced teenage schoolgirl whose thoughts about her crush grow increasingly unhinged with each appearance, a character with incredibly long arms, and a really strange song in which the stand-up gets out a fake umbilical cord and forcibly brings an audience member onto the stage. 

Of course, the sheer nature of the show means not every segment is going to land with the audience, but with how much laughter Lorna gets from the audience, you could easily be persuaded otherwise. 

Now That's What I Call Characters is the type of show that could convince others to pursue their dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian. By taking her silliest and most surreal thoughts and funnelling them into her comedy, Treen shows that comedy is the perfect outlet for the weirdest thoughts you’ve ever had. Better yet, you might even make people laugh as a result.

Lorna Rose Treen might have gotten her flowers in recent years, what with the SNL UK gig and all, but it simply isn’t enough. With this compilation of her greatest material, she reminds us that she is one of the greatest comedians the UK has to offer, and she deserves to be recognised as such.

Lorna Rose Treen: Now That's What I Call Characters ran at Pleasance Courtyard from 17 to 23 August

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