Review: Foot Putter – nothing to do with golf; everything to do with putting your foot in it! (Fringe 2025)

Step into the world of actress-turned-comedian Maja Bloom, where foot-putting is an art form and has nothing to do with golf. Here, filters are impossible to find and stereotypes impossible to avoid in Foot Putter – nothing to do with golf; everything to do with putting your foot in it!

In her 45-minute Fringe debut, Bloom, best known for her role as Carrow in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, takes a stab at building a long-form stand-up and storytelling set, tackling her late-in-life autism diagnosis and figuring out how to manage the directness that gets her into trouble with irreverence, using it to question belonging, communication and support networks.

The breakdown

Fast, fragmented, interactive, part confessional and stand-up. Bloom’s backstory is compelling enough to hold attention even when she seems to juggle multiple threads at once.

She pushes into dark territory, like growing up in communist Poland and even skirting the Holocaust, and explains why her name had to be changed into something pronounceable, sprinkling it with clever gags.

She is far too charming for anyone to take her digs at British culture the wrong way, especially since in essence, as she explains, she is more British than most. So much so that she cracks she cannot stand the Polish herself.

Finding safe places

What stands out in this show is the way Bloom reaches out with honesty and warmth. Few people, autistic or not, are willing to admit how lonely they sometimes feel in the world. Her tips for “fellow foot-putters,” funny yet threaded with a deeper message, are about finding a safe place through kindness and self-acceptance.

She repeats and reframes her autism, openly acknowledging the bullying, mockery and misunderstanding she has faced, while making it clear she is not broken. The perspective she leaves us with is one of compassion: humans may be flawed, but connection matters.

Finding her comic voice

Maja is new to the stand-up scene, so she might still be working out how best to piece her ideas together. But she is not new to performing. She has already built a career as a multilingual actress and singer-songwriter, even drawing some celebrity admirers. That experience has given her presence and a natural feel for storytelling in her debut.

The show already contains key ingredients that can make comedy both moving and memorable. She tackles serious subjects with candour, giving a clear sense of who she is and how she got here, rather than relying solely on superficial, forgettable gags.

And she is funny, with the promise of becoming even funnier as she keeps mining this material for fresh angles and sharper punchlines. .

Overall

Maja is talented, sensitive and very likeable, with a story worth telling. The essential ingredients are already there, yet the show would benefit from a clearer throughline and more consistent punchlines to keep the humour flowing.

Granted it is still a work in progress, but with further honing of her craft she has every chance of lifting this show to new heights, and nothing suggests she cannot achieve it.