Writer: Bronwyn Sweeney
Bronwyn Sweeney is an expert in branding. After years of climbing the corporate advertising ladder, she landed in the coveted role of Creative Director, where she cultivated her skillset for her clients. And, yet, she’s not sure she has any sense at all of her own personal brand. So, to make it worth our while as the audience, she is going to help us through our understanding with a little presentation on the topic. So the set-up goes for this debut hour, as we dive into a brief overview of Sweeney’s life and her journey to the Edinburgh stage.
English by birth, her childhood living all over the world has left her with an American-sounding accent, which she uses to her advantage where possible or entirely abandons when detrimental. Her accent and the misadventures she has trod with it are touched upon a fair bit, with Sweeney ultimately admitting to the audience that she put on an English accent for the entirety of her graduate school experience in Atlanta: two full years.
Sweeney is confident on stage, with a clear voice and casual directness in her delivery; it’s easy to see her years of pitching creative ideas, and how she would have won her clients’ trust. But this is no buttoned-up presentation, to be clear. The topics in this hour vary from panic attacks and family pressure for grandchildren to masturbation and the Thong Song.
She’s not afraid to lay bare some touchy subjects, and has fun with her audience throughout. Her crowd work, though entertaining, occasionally veers off-piste and stymies her momentum in her material. However, she recalibrates with her presentation when needed and the laughs keep coming.
In the end, Sweeney ties together all her threads in an endearing moment of self-reflection. There’s just something about her manner of connecting to the crowd that’s both compelling and endearing, the authenticity in her work shining through. An exciting one to watch and an hour worth catching this Fringe.
Runs until 27 August 2023 | Image: Contributed
The Reviews Hub Score
Fun and frisky
