The promotional material for Hannah Platt’s debut hour at the Fringe features an image of the comedian with perfectly coiffed hair, immaculate makeup, and a bloody nose seeping onto her crimson lipstick. It’s an image that lets you know that this is going to be a show about trauma and that Platt understands that how a woman appears to the casual observer can bear very little on what’s actually going on under the surface.
Platt masterfully walks the razors-edge between self-deprecation and self-loathing
Defence Mechanism is a hilarious confessional about Platt’s recent diagnosis of body dysmorphia and her lifelong struggles with insecurity, suicidal thoughts, and the constant worry about being perceived as different. Yet it’s portrayed with a nervous confidence and slickly delivered by a comedian who knows exactly how ridiculous they sound. Yet it’s never truly uncomfortable as Platt masterfully walks the razors-edge between self-deprecation and self-loathing. She is unafraid to lay out her insecurities and flay her soul as long as it gets a laugh, with the absolute self-awareness that it will be the right kind of laugh; one of recognition, empathy, and a bit of shock - but never sympathy.
She pokes fun at the self-help industry and her personal issues with therapy alongside reflections on how this may all be the fault of her mum and society’s obsession with beautiful women who breeze through life without knowing how pretty they are. Platt, however, seems content to power through life knowing exactly how funny she is. With jokes about dealing with scallies on the tram, coming to terms with her queerness, and trying to get by growing up as a sensitive, artistic, ‘weird’ kid in a working-class northern family, Platt displays excellent timing and knows how to drop in scathing aside alongside her well-planned punchlines.
With various award nominations and growing recognition on the comedy scene, Platt is clearly on a career upswing. It’s such a cliché to imply that you should catch a show at the Fringe so you can say you saw them “before they were famous” but I have a strong feeling that this is Hannah Platt’s year and we’re going to be seeing a lot more of her in the future. Platt is a star in the making.
