Zoë Coombs Marr: Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life review – an act of heroic overreach

Has autobiographical comedy reached its apotheosis? You might think so given how Zoë Coombs Marr ’s show Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life raises the bar for navel-gazing standup ad absurdum – or threatens to. The Australian comic arrives armed with spreadsheets and “online digital whiteboards” tabulating every incident she can recall from her 40 years on the planet so far: Animal Friends; Memorable Sandwiches; Things I Like That No One Else Does.

The doors are locked. This could take a while.

The feat is impossible, of course; that’s the joke. But I am not sure Coombs Marr wrings as much juice as she might out of this act of heroic overreach. In theory the audience can get involved by helping map a different route each night through her hyperlinked flowcharts and grids. But our interactions are strictly circumscribed, in a show that limits itself to a handful of amusing anecdotes from our host’s life – more of them than wholly necessary from a document entitled Vom Wee Poo, which raise laughs of a fairly basic variety.

Alongside which comes a story of Coombs Marr’s brush with Cate Blanchett while working at Sydney Theatre Company, and some material on relationships gone by. For autobiographical completists, it is a thin return – albeit one supplemented by frequent digressions on Coombs Marr’s part, as she reflects archly on the boom in queer comedy and (courtesy of a fine non-binary one-liner) on her own gender identity.

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Does that material justify its place in this particular show? That’s arguable. But the looseness is easy to indulge. Coombs Marr’s pleasure in the enterprise, in its absurd obsessiveness, is infectious, and she is in a very playful mood. The next corny quip or rug-pull (“I’m a trickster!”) is never far away. It is all the more dissonant, then, to hear of the project’s origins in a recent depressive episode which found Coombs Marr needing to evaluate what her life has amounted to. Does Every Single Thing serve that purpose? Well, it certainly puts a spring back in her step, and – even if you feel the idea could be pushed further – it’ll put one in yours too.

• At Monkey Barrel Comedy, Edinburgh , until 25 August
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