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South Wales Daily Argus - January 2007

Now here's a funny thing…

A Natalie Haynes gig can be an hilarious bobsleigh ride with society's ostensibly deserving cases being sent flying to ponder whether or not they really warrant her sympathy.

Take the visually-challenged, for example. Natalie, a former teacher turned gushing stand-up comedian, is convinced a blind man nicked her favourite pen.

So it's logical to keep your hand on your wallet when helping the eyeless across the road.

And what of mothers with babies in big prams, blocking the way at your local designer bakery? Isn't that a look of insanity on their faces rather than an expression of parental affection? It surely is.

Natalie's world is a provocatively topsy-turvy one in which the outrageous can be validated with tongue firmly implanted in cheek and everyone else can seem stupid and annoying.

In her latest show she speculates on how fictional American TV detectives might correct this existential imbalance. In one episode, Colombo was even into the rehabilitation of paedophiles.

But Quincy shouts too much. Jessica Fletcher solves too many stupid murder mysteries and Angela Lansbury, who plays her, made a fitness video for the elderly, thus adding to her character's propensity for tripping over the dead.

Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder could sort everything out - and be tap-dancing (or roller-skating) as an encore.

Wise, witty, lacerating and loquacious, Natalie Haynes will still be raising wicked laughs when Dick has hung up his shoes (or blades).

Nigel Jarrett

Sunday Herald - August 2005

  She is "the most exciting thing since Morrissey" according to Julie Burchill, which can mean only one of two things: Julie's been incredibly bored since the mid-1980s, or Haynes's show is an electrifying, brutally funny hour. It's the latter.

Fest - August 2005

  Maximum enjoyment of this show will be achieved if time is made prior to the performance for consumption of copious packets of Jelly Babies or approximately a litre of Starbucks' finest and strongest. Or you could just get pissed. Either way this will get you on the road to a similar level of hyperness as our Nat, and her 988,000 words per minute will stand some chance of appearing relatively comprehensible. Failing this, carry about your person a paper bag (for when you start to worry that she is about to hyperventilate) and some paracetamol (for the inevitable concentration-induced headache). Despite her distractedly speedy speech, Haynes' delivery is admittedly flawless.

  The occasonally cloying girly-cute appeal - mostly manifested in exclamations of 'hooray' and 'yay!' with accompanying upper body gestures, that punctuate her flowing chat - is regularly shattered by a moral shocker spilling out of her mouth to snap your attention back into place. Whether this is the real Haynes or something she does for effect, these brightly offered, darkly surreal and random thoughts add some much needed grit to the show, turning Run or Die into a performance balanced nicely between sweet and sour.

Katy Monson

Evening Standard - August 2005

  The Ribena-haired raconteur recently turned 30 and, rather than slide into middle-age, has embraced the fact that she can now wear slippers without commiting crimes against fashion. This is potentially cliched fodder yet Haynes is questing enough to find fresh angles. She doesn't just swear, she explores the Latin roots of English expletives.

  Her stand-out set-piece is a breathless deconstruction of cult movie Logan's Run. Don't worry if you haven't seen it, there's a thorough synopsis too, along with an extended riff about talented parrots and a critique of creationist schools in northern England. For someone who thinks they are past it, there's a youthful enthusiasm on display here. It is hard to keep up with Haynes's feverish mind, but worth the effort.

Bruce Dessau

Edinburgh Evening News - August 2005

  A set that eschews the more obvious comedian's reference points in favour of a refreshingly obscure range of subjects - from geometry to the etymology of swearing - Haynes remains incredibly engaging and disarmingly smiley, to the point where she even charms you into thinking that her material about Nazi death camps and posting an aborted foetus is perfectly harmless fun. And that's no mean feat.

Jason Hall

The Scotsman - 6 August 2003

  For a loved-up vegetarian, partial to Dick Van Dyke on rollerskates, Natalie Haynes seems irredeemably cruel. A cynical ex-teacher freed to set the world's morons to rights, last year's Perrier Newcomer nominee coats her acidic observations with just enough sweetness to make audiences feel fine about adopting her prejudices.

  A sequel of sorts to last year's Six Degrees of Desolation, Troubled Enough hinges on the (somewhat arbitrary) notion that approaching her thirties, Haynes should stop finding unsettling nettles to grasp and instead take time to smell life's roses. As she admonishes Sylvia Plath with her head in the oven: "Calm down. Take a deep breath."

  Whatever else she knew about her pupils (and she's hardly unforthcoming), Haynes must have known how to engage a room because her delivery and stage presence are superb. Screwing up her features, squeezing out her indignation, she squeaks incredulously at the ways of fishermen, the police and particularly farmers, building steady rhythms of premise and twist that wrap comforting arms around idiocy, before gently ushering it towards the cliffs of its own illogical conclusions. Having farmers object on principle to the love between cattle and badgers, for example, is close to genius.

  Constant references to her previous shows are entertaining rather than water-treading and if next year's Fringe sees her performing the third installment in a trilogy, I, for one, cannot wait to see it.

Jay Richardson

The Stage - 8 August 2002

  Scary, sweet, unnerving and masochistic, Natalie Haynes' first hour-long show at the Fringe is not something that can be forgotten with ease. Describing herself as a husk of a woman at 27, the former teacher among geriatic colleagues at an all-boys school drags the audience along by the ankles. She bumps us off the ground by rattling tales that appear uncontroversial - barred from pubs, fighting with men, parties at Christmas - but they have one added catalyst to achieve notoriety: her.

  An addictive tutor of cruel quips and anecdotes of personal disaster, Haynes nods her head and firms her lips, acknowledging her wrongs. But cringeworthy tragedy becomes acidic comedy in Haynes' distinctive mind. Perhaps offensive to some, she wrenches laughs from bulimia, rape, cancer and suicide. But her lack of taboo is refreshingly original.

  Watching Haynes is like watching a motorcycle accident and admiring the bike. It is an uneasy, intense experience as she laughs and grins at the risque. She is a personality, not a performer - and what a personality.

Cameron Robertson