“Let’s get rowdy at the breast cancer show!” Helbig shouts to her audience, and right off the bat her 17 years as a YouTuber, people pleaser, and “Good Girl From New Jersey” shine like a post filter Instagram sunshine meme. However, it soon becomes evident that this is not a disconnected facade, or a leaned into American cliché, but genuine good person energy with a knack for storytelling and an astute awareness of show structure.
Helbig is earnest and funny, carrying off that golden balance and giving a glimpse into how exactly someone could be a video content creator for 17 years online successfully. She knows what the conventional media has thought of her profession, and this snapshot gracefully shares a peek at the skills she has acquired and work put in to gain her considerable following.
But this is about her breast cancer – or “white woman on a healing journey”, as she gets in before anyone else can, with a massive PowerPoint slide and a burst of Shania Twain. Helbig takes total control of her ‘story’, steering it into the informative with a great bit about her mammogram, and the slapstick scatlogical with a hilarious telling of being deeply ill and yet trying to ‘win’ at providing a stool sample. This is deeply human and beautifully curated, with a few rip-roarers but also holding its own in rapt storytelling with no punchlines necessary.
Grace Helbig tells all about her experience with breast cancer in an informative, captivating, and warm show, whilst also quietly reminding – or exposing, depending on your era – the legitimacy of her onscreen career. Well done.
Grace Helbig: Let Me Get This Off My Chest, 19.00, Jack Dome in Pleasance Dome, until August 24 (except 11)
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/grace-helbig-let-me-get-this-off-my-chest
