Review: “100% C*ntinental” @ Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Basement at Home Bar) – 20th August 2023

An evening of honest, hilarious and very feminist comedy from the experiences of immigrants across the world? What’s a better way to conclude a weekend at the Fringe?

After a very confusing walk through a bar and down some very dingy stairs, we’re greeted by the lovely door staff of Mari Volar’s “100% C*ntinental”. I then promise not to take any photos from their bad angles (“that doesn’t exist!”), and we were guided to front row for optimal photography angles.

From the moment Mari entered the stage, it was clear her larger than life personality was going to be the crown jewel of her performance. She immediately engaged with the audience, making comments and observations throughout her short set making the small room full to the brim with life and laughter.

The concept of the show, which her set did a brilliant job at introducing, was giving comedians who were born in one country and settled in another the opportunity to settle the score about immigration, make light of the culture shocks they faced and often give a better view of their countries of origin as maybe stereotype explains.

The lineup for the evening was Mari herself opening, a Cologne-based Estonian comedian, followed by American Rabiah Coon, who is now based in the UK. British, Luxembourg-based Jess Bauldry and also Estonian Sandra Tiitson (currently in Tallinn by formerly in Netherlands; and closed off by Australian Anna Beros who is now living in Berlin.

Each comedian, though only given a brief set, gave a fantastic insight into their experiences in comedy, as women, with some queer representation too allowing for a lit of hilarity but not at the expense of plenty of humour.

Rabiah Coon’s set was probably my favourite as the delivery was unique in its bluntness and I am a huge fan of blunt humour. Upon arriving to the stage, she sets up asking us to guess where she is from. Thinking I’m quite smart, I hear her American accent and immediately think the opposite… after all, many non-English speaking countries tend to adopt an American dialect and accent when teaching English. Fortunately for Rabiah, and a compliment to her brilliant spontaneity, this assumption plays right into her hands and she was able to play on the idea that maybe I thought she was Canadian, which is brilliant for her street cred dude to Canadians’ general reputation of being nice people. She used a lot of her feet thenceforth to play into the audience and get to know them, and then obviously, crack jokes at their expense.

To be fair to each comedian that night, the unusually busy crowd for a Sunday night made their sets very easy to adapt to an audience interaction. Next to myself and the culture editor sat this group of old university friends with what seems like a … complicated romance situation between the only woman and one of the guys. Almost every single comedian used this couple, and this group, sat front and centre to elevate their set, and it was a fantastic way to not only interact with the audience but also show their comedic versatility. Of course, this group had not a care in the world about this, making it a thousand times funnier when they were asked a question and ludicrous answers just kept coming.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening, and a fantastic way for Jasmine and I to end our lovely weekend in Edinburgh, and it is clear that each of the individual endeavours of the comedians are going to be fruitful, and I wish them nothing but success!