Joanne McNally is an Irish stand-up comedienne, writer and actress and her one woman show The Prosecco Express is now touring the UK. Some may recognise her voice from the very successful and incredibly funny podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me which she co-hosts with Vogue Williams: a weekly chat between the two hosts offers many laughs and makes for an honest and entertaining listen. Described by The Sunday Times as a ‘truly gifted stand-up’, Joanne has been taking Ireland’s comedy scene by storm with sell-out tours, hilarious chat show appearances, newspaper articles, and a hit documentary under her belt.
McNally performed in her first stage show Singlehood in 2014 where she and seven other people stood on stage and told stories about their love lives. It was there that she was spotted by comedian P J Gallagher who brought her into stand up comedy. Since then Joanne created, wrote, and presented the funny and insightful documentary Baby Hater, which was broadcast in Ireland for TV3, and has been sold to 12 countries. McNally’s first one-woman show, Bite Me – a show about eating disorders – was nominated for multiple awards including Best Performer, Best Production, and a First Fortnight award at the Dublin Fringe in 2016. She was signed with UK comedy agency Off the Kerb in January 2017 and started gigging in London in February 2017.
Touring the UK and Ireland, Prosecco Express and has sold-out multiple dates at Vicar Street in Dublin and the London Palladium. The show is based around love, marriage and fertility, and while all of these are important and serious milestones, her jokes land incredibly well with the younger and older audience. Her reflections on life as a single woman in her thirties led to this tour and inspired the title – all connected to the amount of Prosecco she has been drinking at her friends’ engagement parties, weddings and baby events. She jokingly points out that she missed the boat on kids and marriage as she has spent too long queuing in Zara and while her friends are ticking-off these milestones, she jokes about her breakdown and living with her mother. Joanne and her show are very relatable and the easiness with which she tells the jokes and her presence on stage make the show truly fantastic to watch. Her rapport with the audience made for an electric and playful back-and-forth from the very beginning, and with such a strong performance and the ease with which she delivers, there is no surprise as to why her shows sell out so quickly.
With thanks to Joanna Zuchowska for this review.
