After a review-less break in the balmy waters of Rajiv Karia’s show – in which I truly did not know what to do with my hands without a pen and a notebook – we returned to the same room at the Pleasance Courtyard for Alice Cockayne’s show. Cockayne is a working-class, Northern character comedian, who appears on and writes for Lorna Rose Treen’s brilliant Radio 4 show, Time of The Week.

The stripped-back vibes of Karia’s show have gone, replaced by a steamy, late-night atmosphere, with wigs hanging from the ceiling, and a row of hairdresser training heads on the table at the back of the stage. Cockayne is dressed to the nines, in heavy make-up and long nails, with a frothy black and white coat and tight flared jeans, and wearing an enormous pair of drag queen breasts. She welcomes us to the club ‘Secrets,’ which includes a ballpit and disused toilets, and introduces us to the girls (and a singular dude) as played by the training heads, while herself going through a variety of characters. It’s almost too bananas to keep track of – she plays Penelope Jane, who is heavily pregnant, getting an audience member to run suncream on her fake pregnancy belly (‘not in the belly button, I don’t want it to be neurodivergent’), before quickly going into labour, a Spanish-infused put-upon mother, an errant airport security worker and Jeanie McNelsen, ‘The Woman With A Broken Neck,’ among others. The latter was my favourite, and I felt her whimsy and commitment to her characters really came together perfectly as she swivels her head dangerously about.

The show doesn’t have a narrative per se, not that it really needs one; it feels like a surreal dream. When not surreal, it could do with more concentrated jokes and momentum to give it more gravitas as a whole. But between Cockayne’s characters, the hanging wigs bob and chat to each other in little vignettes, and combined it all feels like a step into a bananas universe I want to know more about, anchored by Cockayne’s assurance and charisma.