THERE’S a popular formula to a lot of Edinburgh Festival Fringe stand-up shows. The comic keeps the audience happy and engaged with jokes and stories for 40 minutes and then hits them with something sad.
They shift the mood, spending five to 10 minutes revealing something traumatic or sensitive, after which they prick the tension with some more levity until taking their bow when the hour-long emotional journey is up.
Edinburgh-based Krystal Evans tosses that structure away in her stunning debut hour, The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp. There are painful revelations all the way through but the jokes don’t stop coming. She tells her harrowing true story with such comedic skill that any lulls in laughter are entirely within her control.
Evans’s early years were heartbreakingly hard. Her mother’s mental illness resulted in instability, chaos, poverty and shame, and when Evans was 14 the family home burnt down. This is a spoiler-free zone, but the consequences of that night were unbelievably tragic, the revelations leaving the audience open-mouthed at times. And yet, somehow, laughing.
READ MORE: Why we brought our play about football and queerness to Edinburgh
“One of the through-lines of the show is how humour has helped me through the hardest times,” says Evans, a finalist in the Scottish New Comedian and Leicester Mercury New Comedian of the Year awards in 2019 and a regular panellist on BBC Scotland’s Breaking the News.
“The women on my mum’s side of the family are so funny. Making fun of each other was the way we communicated. My aunt would always make the darkest joke at the most inappropriate moment and I loved it.”
Describing the intense sense intimacy that she quickly magics up in the room, Evans continues: “The best bits of the show are the really hard bits I’m making fun of. It’s like making fun of a family member in a way you wouldn’t with a stranger.”
On stage, Evans shares some remarkable details about her mother’s behaviour – particularly her indiscriminate and destructive need for attention – and the impact this had on the family.
It’s natural to wonder how she feels about revealing so much. Some might argue that exposing her mother’s character in this way treads a delicate path in terms of privacy but Evans is adamant that what she’s doing is more than fair.
READ MORE: 'We're furious': Scotland's young climate activists react to North Sea licence round
“I’m holding her accountable and my experience is valid,” she says, before quoting a joke from the show: “If she didn’t want me to talk about her on stage she shouldn’t have introduced me to stand-up comedy at a very young age and then traumatised me.”
Getting a laugh out of pain is in her DNA. “My only reservation was that the audience would judge me,” says Evans, hinting at the lingering – and completely undeserved – sense of shame felt by the children of people with behavioural problems.
“This is my story. I know what I grew up with and trust my perceptions. I’m not going to let anyone bully me into not saying the truth. For a really long time I didn’t but I have this important story to tell and I want to tell it. It feels right to tell it.”
Evans didn’t really start doing comedy until she was 30 – seven years ago. She had met her future husband, Scottish chef Stuart Ralston, while working in hospitality in the US and they moved around before settling in Edinburgh and opening the acclaimed Aizle restaurant (and later Noto).
Evans says: “Our dream had been to open a restaurant but that was his dream, really. Less than a year into it, I realised I didn’t want to do that and I really needed to do comedy.”
It was having their first child that really gave her “the kick up the ass” she needed.
“I looked at this baby and thought, ‘I can’t have him look at his mum and see a husk of a human being who never pursued what she should have done’. I knew that, to be a good parent, I really needed to do this.”
READ MORE: Scottish writer crowdfunds for film on rave scene
Evans did a few sets at Red Raw, the Edinburgh Stand’s new acts show, and there was no going back.
Another well-worn entertainment saying, attributed to Mark Twain, is that humour is tragedy plus time. Add charisma, intelligence and genuine funny bones and what you’ve got is an exceptional stand-up show. Go see Evans before she’s huge.
Krystal Evans: The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp, Aug 4-27; previews Aug 2-3; two-for-one, Aug 7-8; 7.35pm, Monkey Barrel (The Hive 2), edfringe.com
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here