REVIEW: Rachel Baker Presents: Gwen – This is Not a Pyramid Scheme, EdFringe 2026 ★★★★

Rachel Baker is a real oddball. This much is clear from the moment you enter her shipping container stage and find a TV welcoming the audience which oscillates between an image of Baker as her alter-ego, Gwen, and text which warns that she currently has a rash on her armpit which is being treated with “medical grade cream”. If you’re looking for a bizarre, off-the-wall hour of wet-yourself late-night comedy, it doesn’t get better than this.

The premise of the show is that Gwen, a serial shoplifter and mild-mannered middle-aged scammer, has just come out of prison for selling bacon and egg flavoured vapes, and, as such, has given up scamming. Instead she will be selling cosmetics for Avon… which is not a pyramid scheme. 

This concept, however, hangs so loosely around the show, that even Baker seems to forget what the show is – we are too busy having fun elsewhere. Throughout the show, Gwen gets distracted by a number of seemingly random impulses and activities, including: encouraging a man to punch a jelly in the air (inevitably this causes a mess to which Gwen exclaims “uh oh I’ve just created a live hazard in the room”); giving her actual bank card to an audience member and sending them out of the room to spend a maximum of £2.50 on anything they fancy (in this case, a cup of Sprite from the KFC down the road); and giving out an 8-pack of Irn-Bru in order that everyone can open a can at once and enjoy the pleasing sound. So easily distracted is Baker/Gwen, that 10 minutes before the end of the show, she realises that she hasn’t yet actually mentioned anything about pyramid schemes which will make the end of the show, in her own words, “really difficult”. It is a glimpse inside the brain of a lunatic and is utterly hilarious. 

What makes this show brilliant is Baker’s endlessly-enjoyable performance as Gwen. With (apparently) so little structure, Baker is able to have the most amount of fun I think it is possible to have in a shipping container. It is clear that she loves every member of the audience and wants to share her pleasure in mucking about with them. In this she is superbly talented, going on tangents and following whatever makes her – and us – giggle until the whole room is shaking with laughter. Baker expertly throws in musical punchlines, quick one-liners, cut-aways to pre-recorded videos, and even a synchronised dance (in a one-woman show?! How?!) to devastatingly funny effect. She inhabits agent-of-chaos Gwen with total physicality and is incredibly convincing as an exaggerated middle-aged friend of your mum’s who has got a bit carried away with creating online businesses. Gwen is a genius creation played note-perfectly by Baker and I could watch her lecture an audience on how to be more “gorgeous and gregarious” forever. 

The joy of the show is that you never quite know where it’s going. It feels fresh, exciting, and I have no doubt that it will be different every night (I have been reliably informed, for example, that in subsequent shows, jelly has been replaced by a chicken pakora). Baker also gives us ample reminders that the show is a work-in-progress in the most literal sense, with bits being added and removed every night, stuffing every nook and cranny with funny stuff (in which she succeeds massively). I have no idea what a non-WIP version of this show will look like, but if this run is anything to go by, it will be huge! I’m already excited to come back and watch Gwen again next year!

Bizarre, brash, and totally joyous, Gwen is a character you simply don’t want to miss. 

Recommended Drink: Bacon and Egg Vape

Catch Rachel Baker Presents: Gwen – This is Not a Pyramid Scheme from 20-31 August at 22:50 (60 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.