Firstly - Kate Fox is very talented at what she does well. A regular on Radio 4, Fox has made a name for herself penning and quipping comedy poetry based on current situations, and despite her slight lisp, her media training on a Radio Journalism course at Loughborough has held her in good sted to perform poetry to the highest degree.But that's the disclaimer out of the way. If the font of all knowledge which is Wikipedia asseses comedy as "humorous discourse generally intended to amuse" then Fox's ditties fail. Not because they aren't clever, believeable or well-versed, but because they fail to amuse, a titter at best as opposed to full-blown laughter.Perhaps, therefore, what this show suffers the most from is the wrong classification in the Fringe programme. Fox's poetic rehash of her life, from humble beginnings in Bradford with a father she didn't meet until adulthood and a mother she disinherited, is occasionally pleasing to the ear - very listenable and probably enjoyable for avid Radio 4 listeners. But it fails to absorb, interest or engage in large sections, and Fox's attempts to make the audience discuss the current 'news' in their own lives is slightly embarassing rather than embellishing the performance. Fox has an undoubted talent, with her life story frequently referring to real life situations and people such as the Yorkshire Ripper and the burning of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. But it's the sort of thing that is very listenable for a couple of minutes before the listener disengages, and often felt more like someone giving a testimony at a baptism then a full-on Fringe hilarity-fest.
