Latitude review: Angela Barnes

Angela Barnes is making being a single, childless thirty-something hilarious.

In her sights this afternoon are newly-wed couples, reaching an age where people expect her to babysit for free, and living with, and being treated for, a condition almost exclusively suffered by children. Creepy, annoying children.

Barnes has a wonderful turn of phrase (she’s 37; a walk of shame for her is a parade of triumph) with a knack for twisting a joke on its head, taking punch lines in a wonderfully unexpected direction.

Blunt, blue-collar and proud, Barnes does embittered, embattled and empowered extremely well.

Her closing bit on how everyone masturbated in the 80s, because there was simply nothing else to do, was a refreshingly angled and well-delivered take on the old “you don’t know what it was like before computers” bit.

Subversive, endearingly  grumpy and without a shred of self-pity, Barnes wins over her crowd with effortless, delightfully coarse aplomb.

Date of live review: Sunday 20 July 2014 @ Henham Park, Suffolk.