Anna Burnside reviews a performance ‘that finds the funny bits in addiction without shying away from the darkness’.
There’s a lot of identity in Alex Stringer’s first solo hour in Edinburgh. She’s an alcoholic, yes, but also a phlebotomist, a bisexual Scouser, a devoted auntie.
All of these play into a show that finds the funny bits in addiction without shying away from the darkness. The 6pm timeslot means that some of the audience - ok me - have brought a drink in with them, and she handles that with good grace.
Crowdwork, done with an AA-style introduction, reveals the role booze plays in British life. Average age of first drinking - early teens. Most embarrassing thing done while hammered? Overdoing it with the Southern Comfort, throwing up and stripping the varnish off the parents’ parquet flooring.
Stringer, no stranger to the projectile vomit, takes us on—what she, as a millennial, would no doubt call—her sobriety journey with diversions into Tinder and the psych ward. There are clever observations—when you turn up at the airport with more hip flasks than hips, it’s time to for a life rethink.
There is even a happy ending. The opposite of addiction, she tells is, is connection. The applause is the proof is right there.
Alex Stringer: Happy Hour performs at the Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker Three) at 18:00 until August 24, 2025.
Photo by Rebecca Need-Nenear.
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