Your Aunt Fanny prepare for a blistering return to audiences with a new live show, podcast, and Christmas special.

Comedy sketch group Your Aunt Fanny are back! After 18 dry months, Lydia Brickland, Jackie Edwards, Brogan Gilbert, Emma Grace, Matilda Neill, Katie Powell, and Iz Sorby are coming together on the terrace of The Cumberland Arms for a summer evening gushing comedy with Your Aunt Fanny: The Cum Back.

On the heels of their first show, Minge Unhinged, receiving multiple five-star reviews leading to commissions from Live Theatre, Channel 4, and the BBC, the gang were last seen tearing up Live Theatre alongside Bonnie and The Bonnettes with Bonnie and Fanny’s Christmas Spectacular.

With the country opening up and a new show suddenly on the horizon, actress and one-seventh of the group Katie Powell can’t wait for the fannies to be exposed to an audience again.

“We are so excited! The Cumberland Arms is a much-loved venue and the ideal friendly place to make our comeback and try out brand new work. We are buzzing to be in front of an audience and show everyone a good time.”

Your Aunt Fanny: The Cum Back is a showcase for brand-new material from Muff Said, their second hour-long sketch show which the group had planned—pre-pandemic—to take to the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe. Now rescheduled for a Fringe appearance in 2022, Katie reflects on how the sophomore show picks up where their debut left off.

“Muff Said is the same set-up as Minge Unhinged; content-wise still silly, still current, still clever, but this time we’re going into it knowing a bit more about what works, what we want to write about and with 18 months of pent up stress to express.”

we want to offer up an evening to come and forget about it all

With tickets flying out the door and the shows on track to be surefire sellouts, the Aunt Fanny team has already taken over The Cumberland Arms in preparation.

“Rehearsals have been a hoot. Working in Ouseburn means posh sandwiches and coffees on your doorstep, so we tend to have a bit of a slow start time and generous lunch break to make the most of it. And a pattern has emerged where at least one of us will have a Covid cry each day. The traditional balance of very fun and very stressful.”

Covid tears aside, the Pandemic ended up infusing the Cum Back more than Katie or any of them anticipated, as the Fannies dug deep and drew from their experiences over the past year when developing the new material.

“Covid has impacted our material a lot! It wasn’t intentional, but sitting around chatting about our lives is how we get material for sketches, and our lives are still very Covid centric, unfortunately. We also want our comedy to be current, so no point making jokes about the state of the world two years ago.”

However, Katie assures the audience that the Cum Back shows will offer Fanny fans old and new pure escapism and a chance to leave their Covid cares at the door.

“Cum Back is by no means a Covid Special, though; we want to offer up an evening to come and forget about it all too.”

expect razor-sharp sketches alongside fabulously filthy and frank talk

As if forty-ish minutes of piping hot new sketches aren’t enough, the Cumberland gigs will also feature stand up from actor, comedian, and self-described ‘tit’ Sammy Dobson. Formerly of Byker Grove and a slew of British television shows, Sammy is now a sketch/stand-up comedy performer, and co-host of the Which Is The Best? podcast with Tyneside comic Lee Kyle.

“It should be the fun night we all need!” Katie affirms while letting us in on even more Your Aunt Fanny content on the way via their brand-new podcast Match Made in Seven; a fresh audio comedy funded by Arts Council England and arriving later this year.

“We hilariously probe each of the seven deadly sins and what it means to be a young womxn partial to one or more of them, each week looking at a different sin and hosted by the Fanny most invested in it!”

With the podcast described as a ‘debut’ series, Katie can’t help but speculate on what future seasons of Match Made in Seven could bring.

“Well, there are seven wonders of the world, seven dwarves, seven members of the original S Club…so much more to delve into…”

Much more indeed, and if Your Aunt Fanny: The Cum Back and Match Made in Seven don’t satisfy your fanny itch, the Christmas show to end all Christmas shows is back; Bonnie and Fanny’s Christmas Spectacular returns to Live Theatre in December, the Fannies collaborating once more with Bonnie and The Bonnettes for an alternative—and updated—Christmas celebration packed with comedy, songs, dance, and assuredly unapologetic raucousness.

Whether you’re checking out the new show, podcast, or Christmas spectacular (or, like this Fanny fan, smashing all three), expect razor-sharp sketches alongside fabulously filthy and frank talk as Your Aunt Fanny vividly conjure the feeling of a night on the town with your oldest, wildest, filthiest friend. So don’t sleep on the chance to see these freshly-minted legends in action; join the Fanny Pack today.

Leigh Venus

Original version published in Narc Magazine

Photos: Your Aunt Fanny