Review: Sarah Keyworth: My Eyes Are Up Here

Wry, hilarious, touching and informative, My Eyes Are Up Here takes the high-stakes saga of Sarah Keyworth's identity journey and effortlessly turns it into relatable stand-up for anyone whose self-expression has threatened their relationship with loved ones. In-between the non-binary comic's 30th birthday last year and their mother's 70th, the pronoun-flexible “Keys” had top surgery for the removal of their breasts, a big deal but also a largely untapped cultural wellspring of personal and observational comedy that they richly exploit. Throw in a burgeoning self-awareness of undiagnosed ADHD that casts much of their childhood struggles into a more revealing light and a tongue-in-cheek realisation that sparking online hate might actually be a lucrative proposition and you get a comic suddenly in total command of themselves, or at least those aspects that they can consistently take the mickey out of.

Although Keyworth's droll delivery instantly reassures that everything turned out well, the surgery wasn't without jeopardy, financial and other costs, and there's still an emotional kicker to the tale that enhances the performance and speaks highly to their storytelling abilities. Even the darkest elements are handled with commendable lightness of touch and there's zero expository excess in the hour, with everything leveraged for a joke, fat excised from the tale like Keyworth's erstwhile “bazingas”.