Making her entrance from the shadows, Amelia opens with a rap – which she continues to do sporadically throughout. She’s good at it, however, she’s better at the chat that makes up the remainder of her routine. As amelia says, she ‘chose to do comedy-rap and her sister chose to be a pole dancer’. She isn’t bad at the raps per se, but her stand-up and crowd work is levels above.
The raps do work, and the jokes and wordplay within them land, but they feel less substantial than her stand-up. A rap dedicated to her ex suffering minor inconveniences would have worked way better as a standard comedy routine.
Amelia is confident and energetic in her delivery, which at times contrasts to her material. She talks up females in STEM in one of her raps, then goes on to undermine the message for the sake of comedy. Maybe I’m being cynical but she undercuts her own messages twice in the routine – she supports a clear cause (while still joking about it) just to make a mockery of it soon after.
She raps about not shying away and trying the best you can. ‘So much potential’ she sings. Though, at the same time she says, ‘we will all die and no matter what we do it will all be forgotten’ – all the while quoting historical figures (who are remembered?)…
Amelia has a lot of potential herself which makes me look forward to seeing what she does next.
Amelia Hamilton: Forget Me Not, Attic at Pleasance Courtyard, 21:45, Until 24 Aug
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/amelia-hamilton-forget-me-not
