Amy Mason: Free Mason @ The Walrus, Brighton, UK, 8 May 2024

Amy Mason

Amy Mason: Free Mason @ The Walrus, Brighton, UK, 8 May 2024,

May 15, 2024
By Nick Roseblade
Photo: Jain Edwards
Web Exclusive

Sometimes when you're at a concert, you have to realize how special it is. How, in the not too distant future, the artist you see won't be playing in such intimate rooms. I had this last night when I was watching comedian Amy Mason's work in progress show 'Free Mason' as part of the Brighton festival. The room was tiny and crowded, but the laughter was loud and boisterous. The beauty of an ongoing show is that it gives the comedian a chance to test out their new material before taking it out on the road properly. It's like listening to the demos of your favorite songs. Sometimes the tune is slightly different, but most of the time everything is there, it just needs to be tested on the road. This is what happened at The Walrus. The show was a tight 60 minutes with little that felt out of place.

In about a decade Mason has written two books, performed twice at the Edinburgh festival and amassed over ten million views on TikTok. Not bad, right? Her new show 'Free Mason' sees Mason reflect on life in your forties. The whirlwind of romance, marriage and children, then what happens when it all starts to go wrong. Being a single parent. Dating and then dating your kids. And how you pick yourself up and start again. Work. Appointment. School whatsapp groups. It's all there. And it's great to see her turn the mundane into something hilarious and life-affirming. There's a reason Mason is getting a shout-out from Radio 1's Greg James. Because she's back at the Edinburgh festival, she's been asked to appear on panel shows and write pilots for TV shows that could change the mood. At one point he talked about how having children causes sleep deprivation and about Margaret Thatcher, who was known to sleep only four hours a night. “With an extra three hours, it might have been different,” Mason said, “She might have been hugging sheep, with fear in her hair. After an hour of sleep, I was three seconds away from invading Argentina myself.” Another point she talks about how on a route to school she came to her daughter. After explaining what Section 28 meant when she was growing up, how she has transgender friends and knows same-sex couples, she asked her daughter if she had any questions. Her daughter replied: “Why are we in Asda?” It's jokes like this that show off her wit and timing. At one point Mason talks about how gay sheep are “You wouldn't call sheep queer, would you?” she says, before explaining that the males just inoculate each other, while the females stand alone in the field, waiting for another lesbian sheep to approach them, but they never do because females don't mate like that. “Sounds like a better life than some of the lesbians I know,” she jokes “A lot of fresh air and exercise.”

Mason's comedy is not rapid fire. Not everything is set up like dominoes. So with a flick of her finger, it all comes crashing down, in a flash, and the end payoff isn't nearly as impressive as the set-up. No. Her comedy is something better. Much more pleasant. It's smart, but not smug. You have to pay attention because you never know if something he says as a throwaway will have a deeper meaning later in the show or be a payoff to a bigger, more important joke. Only time will tell if the material from tonight's show ends up being the finished show, but it felt pretty finished to the audience. Free Mason? Nah, man, she's already free and crazy!