Review: Sarah Roberts – Scary Movie 7, Fringe 2026

Sarah Roberts arrives at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 with Scary Movie 7, taking up a late-night 22:00 residency at Monkey Barrel 2 from 3 to 30 August (excluding the 17th).

Staged in the subterranean, sweat-and-laughter atmosphere of Scotland’s premier comedy hub on Blair Street, Roberts delivers an hour of confessional stand-up underpinned by horror tropes, modern alienation, and absurd vulnerability.

Roberts enters the room commanding total authority from the jump, draped in a black occult hooded cape and weighed down with heavy monster-restraining chains. The premise is laid bare immediately: having absorbed her twin in the womb, Roberts has spent her entire life chasing an elusive sense of connection to escape the dread of being alone.

Cursed Confessions and Modern Paranoia

What follows is an autobiographical tour through childhood crushes, social desperation, and the lingering horrors of adulthood in your thirties. Roberts navigates her material with an acute awareness of the modern digital landscape. A major narrative highlight unpacks the fallout of an impulsive, drunken viral tweet about an ex’s new partner clumsily snooping on social media. It captures a distinctly contemporary paranoia, dissecting how our parasocial habits and screen-mediated lives distort basic intimacy. It makes you view Uber rides in a new light.

Her crowd work in the intimate confines of MB2 is sharp yet remarkably welcoming. Questioning the front row about their own brushes with romantic quests and online flare-ups, she engages without ever turning cruel or alienating her audience. Rather than relying on cheap shock value, Roberts weaponises her own indignities, sharing intensely personal embarrassments while entertaining the idea that she might simply be supernaturally cursed.

Precision Timing and Cult Energy

The production benefits from tight technical integration. Sound effects and lighting cues land with spot-on precision, heightening the eerie, B-movie aesthetic without overshadowing the stand-up itself. Roberts jokes that she has locked herself in the room with the crowd until she extracts what she needs; tellingly, not a single person attempted to break for the door.

Roberts blends existential dread with magnetic, self-effacing warmth. The material runs at a brisk pace, balancing the grotesque premise of prenatal cannibalism against the grounded, relatable sting of being ghosted and living back at your parents’ house. It is a confident, refreshingly unhinged hour that confirms her status as a standout voice on the UK circuit.

Overall

Sarah Roberts: Scary Movie 7 is a blisteringly funny, darkly inventive hour that turns deep-seated loneliness into brilliant communal theatre. Roberts holds the Monkey Barrel room in the palm of her hand with faultless timing and irresistible charm. Catch her on Blair Street before the run ends.