At a festival with 3,600 shows, some will feel samey. But no other performance is likely to resemble Josephine Lacey’s. Autism Mama may not sound that distinctive on paper: it is about Lacey’s experience of parenting a son with autism and sensory processing disorder – slotting neatly, you might think, into the category marked “comedy shows about neurodiversity and challenging personal experiences”. But it never feels like that in Lacey’s handling – and you’d better believe handling is the right term. The 56-year-old’s debut hour is rude, precise, wickedly humorous and – a lovely quality, this – glowing with maternal love.
Not that she is showy or sentimental: she is a straight-talking Londoner (“That can fuck right off!”) with not the slightest soppiness about her. The biggest-hitting set-piece advertises gleeful schadenfreude at the death of her son’s biological dad. However, usually love and not loathing is the top note, as Lacey talks us through her life as “both mum and dad” to a son with dysregulation and his experience of puberty. On one level, that leads to embarrassing predicaments in public places, like the supermarket trip interrupted by Callum saying “Ooh I like your breasts” to a passing shopper. On another, it finds Callum experiencing pain and uncertainty in his changing body and its changing reactions.
Step forward autism mama, boldly going – armed with a long, thin balloon and a tube of lube – where few mamas have gone before. We get the full demo here. There’s also a central section re-creating sex-ed for those with special educational needs, which is perhaps more useful as context than comedy. But in her authoritative style (she would make a great educator herself), Lacey usually maintains an adroit balance between funny and fascinating. And fond: there is an extraordinary moment when her balloon penis gives Lacey an instant’s insight into life as her beloved boy lives it – insight which she acknowledges she is usually denied. Was parental love ever distilled in such an unlikely image? This is a tender, crystal clear and cheerfully indecent show about a mother going, if not the extra yard, then at least the extra six inches.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 25 August
• All our Edinburgh festival reviews
